scary stat of the day

[cos]

Earlier today, for reasons I'll leave out, I found myself wondering how much less use of LJ there is in Iowa than in California, which led me to the raw livejournal stats page. On the way, I noticed that Massachusetts is the #6 state by number of LJ accounts, even though the rest of the top 10 have significantly higher populations. So I pulled up census.gov and divided some numbers...

• Approximately 4.8% of residents of Massachusetts have LiveJournals
• For California, it's about 2.5%. Iowa, 1.4%, and Idaho, 1.0%.
• I think MA has the highest LJ percentage of any state, and perhaps any country. Almost 1 out of 20!

... but I didn't have time to check any more states, or write a script, so I'm not sure :)

Comments

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

I bet Massachusetts has a higher concentration of college students than anywhere else.

[cos]

I think that's true, but the LJ age distribution bell curve peaks around 17-19, so high school student population should be at least as important, if not more, than college. There must be something else besides raw percentage of college students to explain this.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

I think LJ spread through our community like a virus. If you want to know what's going on, you've got to be on all the forums that distribute information. I read long before I signed up, but got frustrated with missing friends-locked posts.

Does the census factor in college students and other transients? Because someone might have MA listed as their LJ location because they live here, but be registered in another state census-wise. That would skew your numbers.

[cos]

People aren't "registered" for the Census. The Census doesn't try to pin down each individual in the country, because that would systematically undercount certain types of people (like the homeless, and the poor, and transients) who are harder to track down. They send surveys to a representative sample, but they also canvass, use statistical methods, and try to determine to the best of their demographers' and mathematicians' abilities, how many people (and what sorts of people) actually are in each local area (known as a "census tract" and roughly a little under the size of a city ward). And because federal money gets distributed in proportion to census figures for many programs, and Congressional representation is based on census numbers, any state that thinks they may be getting undercounted for any reason, makes sure to raise the issue rather forcefully. So I'm pretty sure the census accounts for our college population reasonably well.

[aerynne.livejournal.com]

Actually, the census does try to pin down each individual in the country; they just try to estimate the people who don't or can't respond. What they do with the representative sample is send those households a much longer survey. https://ask.census.gov/cgi-bin/askcensus.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1025&p_created=1133810040&p_sid=aj4ZLeZh&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MiZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9ZXZlcnlvbmU*&p_li=&p_topview=1

[jennylisa.livejournal.com]

I was a college student at 17. I wonder what that percentage is?

And, overall, I find this whole phenomenon to be one of the most disturbing things ever. Mostly due to it's addictive qualities...

[ellipticcurve.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking that your fair state's overwhelmingly urbanized character might be part of the answer. Higher population density -> more Internet access -> more freaks like us wasting precious electrons. Also, you guys have a more educated populace than... well, anywhere, I think, and we educated folk are more likely to fritter away precious minutes of our lives on LJ.