Let's Do The Math...
This is an interesting question. Let's take a look at what we do know (and somebody please check my math!)...
- Currently, the United States is #1 in the world for Internet users, having the hightest percentage of it's population online. There are an estimated 259 million people online over age 16, and about 43% are from the US. So about 111,370,000 people from the US are Internet users over age 16.
- The current US population is estimated at around 272,691,000. So if this is true, then these Internet users over age 16 make up about 41% of the population.
- There are currently 1,363 registered members on the TMF. Now as we all know, this is THE place for tickle enthusiasts. Even the more inhibited/reserved will find a search engine and do a search on "tickling" at some point in their Internet existences. If they don't they probably aren't part of the population we seek to identify. Let's assume that they find the TMF, or at least that most of the online ticklefreaks are registered here.
- SO doing the Math, TMF members make up 1.22% of the population of Internet users from the USA. And Internet users (over 16) from the USA make up about 41% of the total population. So by dividing the US Population by the Number of Internet Users, and multiplying that times the population of the TMF, we can assume VERY conservatively that there are approximately 3,337 people out there who are ticklefreaks just like ourselves in the U.S. alone. And that's just the number over 16!
How can we get more accurate data?
- For one thing, the TMF is not currently showing up on the top pics at Yahoo on a "tickling" search, and it must be remembered that Yahoo is the most popular search engine in the world. Therefore, it's concievable that there are still a few out there who are searching but have not yet discovered the TMF. By resubmitting to Yahoo and the other search engines (altavista, etc) on a frequent basis, we can keep the TMF popping up among the first results to a "tickling" search. This would increase our numbers, which we could use to extrapolate and determine a bigger (and more accurate) estimate of the US population.
- Remember that this does not include those under 16, outside the US, those too shy to register, and a whole host of others.
Of course there are many other countries we can do this for as well! Our brothers in Canada, Russia, and other countries can plug in their own data...it would be interesting to see the results.
I doubt anyone has read this far, but if you have I hope you've found it fun and interesting! I don't think this will be showing up on a high school math test anytime soon...
Bandit
Sources: The US Census (
http://www.prb.org/pubs/usds2000/section1.html), The Toronto Star (
http://www.kkc.net/toronto-star/2000/0127/), and other places I'm too sleepy to remember right now.
🙂