I came across this Typealyzer web site which purports to assess a blogger’s personality type based purely on the written word. I have 3 active blogs and I apparently manage to write using a different personality type on each blog:
- This blog — my personal technical blog — pegs me as “INTJ – The Scientists”.
- My Gaming Pathology blog — where I write about usually obscure video games — marks me as “ESTP – The Doers”.
- My corporate blog — where I speak in fairly careful terms about what I do at my day job — earns me the distinction of “ENTJ – The Executives”.
I suppose all of those make sense. Each blog is written with a slightly different tone. This is in keeping with the website’s explanation that “This is about exploring social roles (or personas) that are expected to be different in different situations.” I think it’s frustrating that I have to write my corporate blog in an executive, often vacuous tone (and I know it frustrates the readers to no end as well); I would much prefer if it could lean toward “The Scientists” end of the personality inventory. Alas, it is not to be.
I popped in a bunch of blogs I read but they all seem to learn toward certain areas of the brain chart. According to that chart, I don’t seem to read any blogs by people heavy in the sensing or feeling departments. I have a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it. On a hunch, I plugged in the blog produced by the top Google search for “angsty teenager blog” — Teen Angst Poetry. That scores as “ISFP – The Artists”. Sure enough, I don’t think I would enjoy reading that blog.
I never believe such personality tests, or any tests for that matter.
I has it test my blog, and it barfed out: “active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus.” Very unlike me.
I can’t help but notice that it takes not only the posts, but also the interface in considerations. I wonder how much phrases like “log in” and “Customize” affect the score.
I wonder about that too. You can also aim it at a specific post, in which case it takes into account all of the comments attached to that post. That must skew the results as well.
Much more modest are the claims made by http://genderanalyzer.com/ which seeks only to determine the gender of the blogger and nothing whatsoever about their personality. A run against my blog pins me as male with a probability of 98%. However, when fed the blog of a female friend, it produces an 87% male score.
Mike’s blogs are all judged to be from a man, with scores of 71% (games), 88% (eggs), and 94% (adobe). The stereotypical executive is male, right?
The angsty teen is, unsurprisingly, deemed to be a girl.
… they all seem to learn?
I have a 4th blog too– my old baking blog at http://flour.multimedia.cx . The kitchen is still computationally determined to be a woman’s domain as the Gender Analyzer assesses an 83% probability that it’s authored by a female.