Irish Life, Irelands largest life insurance and pension company recently posted an article displaying their findings from recent research for the launch of its new brand campaign “We Know Irish Life – We Are Irish Life”.
Some of these findings were shared with the public and while although we can all account for some of these facts and relate to them quite well, to see them in statistical form does show how much we are willing to divulge to the public while at the same time hiding quite a lot.
40 % of Irish people look at someone’s profile before going on a date with them. – This one shocked me a little bit, in that the number was a lot smaller than I thought it would have been. Only 40% ? And while I think it is slightly refreshing that people are less inclined to do the whole “Facebook Stalking” before a blind date, a part of me is confused with the thought process behind not needing to know if they have anything in common with their date to lessen the extent of awkward silences.
24% of Irish people have tried online dating – Leading on from the above point, I remain sceptical about this fact. Given the current lifestyle and how everyone is busy being busy, I find it hard to believe that more people haven’t turned to having a quick skim through their potential matches through the many online dating sites available. Added to this only 1 in 10 people have lied on their online profile. Personally I think a little white lie was told in the survey for this. I find it hard to believe that only a few people in the grander number say one or two things that might make them look more appealing.
Only 28% of people read the terms and conditions for apps and social media – I’ll admit I’m at fault for this but when you think about it this is quite a scary notion. I’ve posted before how people willing to agree to the terms and conditions for free wifi actually didn’t take notice of the “Herrods Clause” where you agreed to give the company your first born! While that was a harmless prank people who have read the Terms and Conditions of the Facebook Messenger App have highlighted some rather frightening findings. Seemingly by agreeing to install the app you are reportedly allowing Facebook to send texts without your permission, record audio and even read personal data on your phone and send it to others. Moreover only 1 in 5 people have actually checked their privacy settings on their social media profiles.
34% of Irish people hide their friends posts on their newsfeed if it contains too many posts about pets/babies. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I can tick this one off as well. I’m all for keeping in touch with people and seeing what everyone’s up to but to me, and I guess the rest of the 34% there can be a line between wanting to keep your friends/family updated with your posts and just spamming the bejesus out of Facebook.
Here are some of the other facts that Irish Life have shared. What do you make of them? Do you think the numbers are accurate?
- Only 55% allow themselves to be tagged in images on Facebook
- 43% of Irish people are friends with at least five colleagues on Facebook
- 37% only check-in on Facebook if they are somewhere interesting
- Just 38% of Irish people know all of their Facebook friends personally
- 23% of Irish people have a Facebook ‘cull’ once a year
- 1 in 5 only post things on Facebook that make them look exciting
- Only 15% only use LinkedIn when looking for a job
- Over 1 in 10 of Irish people have lied on an online dating profile
