Orkut Birthday Reminder Psychology Test
Background
I changed my birthdate on Orkut to the 12th of September, on the 11th of September.
Story
Ok people, please don't kill me.
I am sorry.
My real birthday is on September 23rd, and not 12th (as was widely believed) or on some other date.Thank you for your wishes, they'll count for my birthday.
Statement of Purpose:
"I wish people on their (supposed) birthdays if it shows up on Orkut even if I have no clue about the persons birthday. I wanted to see if I'm the only one who does that, or do most."
In other words, this was a test to see how many rely solely on what Orkut reports for birthday wishings. This was a deliberate change made by me. Imagine for some time, I had not made the change, and Orkut (we all know how good technically Orkut is) made it by mistake, the results would be as they are here.
Statistical Results:
12 (MSR) Zubair, Ayush, Amber, Poonam, Ankit, Anmol, Chandan, Aashish, Madan, Sridhar, Lakshman, Amrithraj
9 (MSR not my batch) Yagnesh, Nikhil, Aashith, Abhishek, Shakeel, Ganesh, Sandesh, Sudhev, Dinesh
8 (KVM) Radha, Sumant, Preetham, Deepak, Sushil, Karthik, Debi, Rajeev
11 (NPS) Abhinav, Viphul, Shankar, Ruchika, Vinod, Vishnuram, Swastik, Shilpa, Venkat, Mahesh, Arabhi
1 (NPS not my batch) Puneet
4 (Online/SKA) Chaitanya, Priyanka, Arun, Madhu_Tejas
fell for it, and wished me either in advance, on the 12th, and even belated.
Count_A: 45
Mahendra, Kavitha, Hema, Ganesh, Srikanth, Deepshikha, Devadutta, Jagadish, Mayur (MSRIT) spotted the "error"
Count_B: 9
Asha, Madan, Prem, [Infant_Prabhu (MSRIT), Preeti] (scraps below do help in knowing the truth :) ), Srinivas (NPS) wished me but (later) got/had doubts.
Count_C: 6
All inclusions, especially to Count_B are welcome.
Please notify me if I have mis-spelt your name, want me to remove it, etc.
This psychology test was highly successful, going by the numbers.
Nearly half of my 131 Orkut friends responded.
Interesting Mentions:
Amrithraj, for giving me a "belated" wish on the 12th (my supposed birthday) itself.
Radha, for wishing me twice, once in advance, and once on my supposed birthday.
Ruchika, thanks really for your detailed wishes, you have patience.
Srinivas, for looking up my resumé to see if I was lying.
Madan, for SMS'ing me asking if it was my birthday.
Results: Most people, like me, rely (quite blindly) on Orkut's reminder for wishing.
Conclusion:
I can continue to wish people using Orkut's reminder system. Others may play pranks (possibly inspired by this), but I won't be the only one to get fooled.
Thank you all for participating.
Sorry for the trouble/hurting your feelings.
Do not be sorry that you have forgotten my birthday, I do not expect you to remember it; just like how I do not remember yours.
Treats will follow, yes.
Please continue flaming me on Orkut for this prank in my scrapbook, as well as commenting on this blog. Thank you.
BTW, my birthday this year according to the lunar calendar is on Sep 12th. So it really was my birthday! [Well, not really, I haven't bothered to check. And it's not as if you believed me this time ;)].
Other (not so) interesting facts:
Month is September (9).. 11 days to my real birthday (11) - The 9/11 connection, of course, has to be made with everything for it to be worthwhile. Why wasn't I "born" on 9/11, that's another story, let me know if you want to hear the long story preceeding this "event".
Other (nearly) famous people born on Sep 12th:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_12#Births
