Thoughts on Survey

I felt good going into the survey, after each questioned I answer I caught myself constantly reconsidering the answer I had chosen. The survey was interesting. But I did not necessary feel as good at the end of it. (So I spent a while just talking to my mom) For some of the questions, more so the questions about friends, social and political I stopped and gave it a deeper thought, until it became hard for me to make a final decision. It came me the chance to really think about the relationship I have with other people. I kept thinking about every little thing to use to answer the question. I felt like the survey questioned those relationships and it certainly got me thinking. I thought about my friends, and the basic things that happen daily. It forced me to compare the relation I have with my family and my friends. I realize how much more time is spent being social with my friends than my family. After answering the questions I honestly got a better sense of my situation, I understood everything a little better. I think sometimes it takes questioning things in order to really work them out. I felt I answered with more positive "yes" answers than negative "no" answers. Since it was completely anyomous I felt comfortable answering the questions as honestly as I could. Even though I did not want to think about some of the questions, and I might not have wanted to admit sometimes to myself. Some questions I gave less though than other, and other questions I was stuck on.

I felt like there were a bunch of random questions tied into the survey. The results based off the statement: “I have a friend that I will ”know” for a lifetime came as a shock to me. The results came out to be a total of about 80% of people who said they do. I remember my friends in 5th grade would always talk about being friends forever, so go about planning our lives together. Because we honestly believed that it was going to happen. Yet only a couple years later we both changed enough not to be as close. This statement relates to that of: “you have a friend you tell virtually everything too” The result of this survey question was about 80% as well. I guess it just shows how dependant we are on other people, especially our friends. People want to be independent and break away from family, and fit in with other people. I think people in my age group who took this survey as well do dependant on our friends more than our family. People want to fit in with others and so they answer the question accordingly. Maybe what they chose is an answer that is not true for them but would be true for the person they “want” or are “expected” to be. And so I think part of the survey questions were answered subconsciously. There are some times that people have a tough time admitting. Even if the entire survey is anonymous they have trouble admitting it to themselves. I tried to be honestly, but I know that I probably was not completely honest. But I want to believe that maybe something is not true. That was shown in some of the results. I felt as though The drugs and alcohol questions were a little bit weird and the answers I found even weirder. A pattern I noticed that the two or so question involving drinking and drugs have very similar results. There was such an uneven amount of people who said they drank/ did drugs or they didn’t. However based off the results that did not seem to be the case. By the way people are always talking about drinking and drugs I would expect the results to be a high percentage of people who do admit to doing drinking or do drugs.

Comparing The results of our small school survey to the results of the 2007 National Youth Risk Behavior survey was interesting. There were topics brought up in both surveys where the results did not seem to really match up. People from our school cannot generalize results for the entire population of teens. To generalize for a wide range of people there needs to be a variety of people surveyed in order to make the results accurate. Another possible factor of accuracy is how the questions are phrases because people can interpret questions differently. Looking at the youth risk behavior survey, people said 40.4% had never been drunk. Another question results were 75% of the surveyed people have consumed an alcoholic drink. Which possibly describes the results in our student survey.

Another survey conducted by smartgirl (http://www.smartgirl.org/speakout/archives/friendship/friendship.html) in November and December of 2001 showed similar results to our school surveys. Although theirs was filled out by about 400 people, it directly compares to the results shown in our school survey. The only different is that this survey was conducted with majority of the people being girls. That 70% percent of people who say they will be friends for life only stay friends for less than 10 years. Granted that we have all been alive for no more than two decades, it is still a significance point to make. It makes me wonder how the results would differ I there were more boys.