By the Numbers

Feeling a bit lazy curious a couple of weeks ago, I created a survey for our readers. It was really a chance to see what kind of responses we would get from you. I had no expectations about the quantity of responses and the direction that those responses would take. In hindsight I wish I had placed a comment box in the questionnaire to allow you to tell me how curious lazy I was being.

In an attempt to keep my promise, I wanted to share the results of the questionnaire with you and maybe encourage those who didn’t take part to join in on the next one. We will never share any personal information from these surveys, our main purpose for collecting this general information is to answer questions from our sponsors and advertisers about what kind of people read, follow, friend, like the information that spews from our internet connection. So here goes with the data along with some comments on what we think your answers are telling us.

Question 1: Tell us about yourself –

• We had 79 people attempt to make it through the questionnaire. The overwhelming majority (67.1%) were male but since about 51% of our Facebook fans claim to be women we can only conclude that women don’t want to share what outdoor sports they enjoy and why but are more than willing to share where they ate lunch today. On the other hand it could be skewed toward guys because they thought they’d have a chance to talk about how tough they are.
• The ages ranged from 22 to 70 years old with the majority (30.4%) in the 31-40 age group with the 41-50 age group close behind (27.8%). These age groups fall within the mid-life crisis range for most men and women, kudos to you for going with improving your health and getting outside instead of getting a red corvette, of course doing both would be cool too. In reality the cost of the red corvette gets replaced with travel to races, entry fees to races, new bikes, new running shoes, new kayaks, etc.
• In my question about the number of people in the household, no one answered 10 or more which means the Duggars either don’t read Arkansas Outside or they don’t fill out questionnaires. (Too bad since they could practically double our readership.) The largest group here (30.4%) had 2 in the household. The assumption could be made that they are either young pre-children couples, empty nesters, single-parent with one child, childless families, etc. making this question useless. Actually, if I wasn’t so lazy I might pair this information with the age information and conclude that empty nesters make up a significant percentage of our readers. This makes sense as some of the activities we cover require free time and money for equipment.
• You would think that everyone who completed a survey by a media company called Arkansas Outside would consider themselves outdoorsy, wrong. Seven respondents did not consider themselves outdoorsy which tells me that 8.9% of respondents to any questionnaire take them just because they think a prize is being offered.
• Just about half of the respondents spend anywhere from 5 to 20 nights camping per year. That’s not bad but there were 30 who spend 4 or fewer nights camping each year. I’d highly recommend finding several cool nights this fall and get out to one of our wonderful state parks to see what you are missing. I can almost smell the breakfast bacon floating on the cool morning air.

Question 2:

Everytime I come across a puddle on a trail, I always see slightly worn trails going around each side as people try to keep their shoes/boots/tires dry yet only one respondent claimed to go around. Liars! Go stomp in a puddle next time you get a chance, be a kid.

Question 3: Please Tell us about yourself –

75 of the 79 respondents were from Arkansas with two from Missouri and two from Louisiana. Where are all my Texas buddies?

Question 4:

A lesson to be learned, when you rake up a pile of leaves, be the cool house in the neighborhood and leave it up for a couple of days. Take a jump yourself.

Question 5: During which season are you most likely to go outside?

Fall was the big winner here with almost 45% saying it was the favorite. Only 5 people said that Winter was the time to head outside. Maybe I should re-ask that question around the second week of August.

Question 6:

Really? With the previous results showing a propensity for stomping in puddles and jumping in piles of leaves I would have expected “running through sprinklers” to take a bigger percentage here.  I guess the empty nesters are worried more about being seen in a bathing suit than being seen acting like a kid. Of course I never made a bathing suit a requirement for running through the sprinkler.

Question 7: What activities do you participate in when outdoors?

Respondents were allowed to pick all that applied.

The top 10 –

1. Hiking (83.5%)
2. Road Cycling (67.1%)
3. Camping (64.6%)
4. Mountain Biking (58.2%)
5. Canoeing/Kayaking (57%) tie
6. Trail Running (57%) tie
7. Road Running (50.6%)
8. Fishing (40.5%) tie
9. Gardening (40.5%) tie
10. Backpacking (36.7%)

Should we be doing more hiking stories? We’ve never done a fishing or gardening story, who wants to do one? Let us know…seriously.

Question 8:

If you didn’t answer that you are a “monster” all you have to do is finish in the top 12.8% to ruin some monsters racer’s day.

Thanks

To those of you who answered our survey and those of you who read our articles, thank you very much. If you would like to donate an article at some point, just let us know. We’ll have more survey’s coming up and a lot more fun stuff to get involved. See you outside soon.