Dear Data Two | Week 28: Smiling at Strangers

I was really looking forward to this week! Anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE talking to strangers. My wife has quite a few good stories to tell about me making the odd conversation with someone I don’t know. Mostly what I enjoy is seeing people’s reactions. I find most people to be accepting, but there are times when I probably should keep my mouth shut.

For Dear Data Two, I had to track smiling at strangers only. Meaning COMPLETE strangers. I collected data based on the date, location, and how the person reacted.

Locations were then grouped into five situations:

1. Traveling
2. Coffee & Food
3. Leisure Activities
4. Shopping
5. Work

I strictly recorded only one reaction/interaction per person:

• Smiled back
• Smiled at me first
• Didn’t notice me
• Looked away
• Pretended they didn’t notice me

The reactions were grouped by sentiment:

• Positive = Smiled back & Smiled at me first
• Neutral = Didn’t notice me
• Negative = Looked away & Pretended they didn’t notice me

I did a lot of exploration of the data in Tableau, which you can see by clicking on the image below. The most notable finding was how friendly people were while traveling. This surprised me because I assumed travel correlates with stress; I’m glad to know I’m wrong.

Overall, a super enjoyable week for me. I’m interested to see Jeffrey’s take on this topic. I think he’s a bit more introverted than me.