World of 100 Analysis
Religion
I was closest with muslim, other and non-religious, which was not all that surprising because I was fairly certain that a large chunk of the 100 would affiliate with the Muslim religion given all of the Middle-Eastern demographics. I was, however, not expecting to be so far off with Buddhist and Christian. In my mind those are the fairly equal because of the number of countries that might believe them as a main religion.
Language
The most interesting part of this one was the number of people who spoke other languages, I always knew that there were other languages but I was unaware of just how many and how prominent they were in the world. I was surprised by how few spoke Arabic and Chinese (even though Chinese still had a higher number across the board) because I thought those were spoken more widely. If fewer languages were in Other, it definitely wouldn't have been as high. I was also surprised by how many points Malay-Indonesia and how few English got. English because though only a few countries speak it as the main language, I thought many spoke it as a secondary language.
Geography
As far as geography goes, I should have thought more ahead of the amount of people in Asia and how few people live in North America given that North America is basically only two countries and Asia has a huge amount with some of the most populated cities in the world. Given that thought process though, I was counting on Latin America because of the highly populated cities. I was most surprised by the amount of people who live in North America because it seems like one of the main places people immigrate to from other countries.
Analysis of Total
I was surprisingly close with certain parts of technology, for instance the amount of people who own computers (22) and are internet users (30) were spot on. With that said, I went into those with a fairly cynical view of the world. Thinking of the amount of people who I've met in various countries all use the internet, though they might not own a computer necessarily. I understood that a lot of the world is impoverished, but didn't realize until the answers came back what it means to be privileged in certain countries versus others. Given these views, I was really surprised at how far away I was from guessing the poverty in the world. The question was how many people live on more than 2 U.S dollars per day (52) and how many live on less (48). Though I'm relieved (and at the same time disturbed) that it's about half and half, I understand that 2 U.S dollars per day is almost nothing the United States. It's almost a forth of minimus wage per hour in this country, which is really not enough to live off of. Most people in our school spend more than 2 dollars on food every day.
Another category I was interested in was Urban and Rural dwellers. My guess was 70 would be urban dwellers and 30 rural; however, I was off again. The real statistics are urban 51 and rural 49. This caught me by surprise. I thought because cities are such a huge market for jobs and international affairs they would be more populated with people who live, work, and raise a family there. That the amount of people living in rural areas would be fewer because of fewer job opportunities and because of generally fewer people to more land, whereas cities tend to be the opposite.
When tallying the amount of people per category, I realized that I just don't know much about the living environments, income, death rates, form of government, etc of those in the surrounding countries.
I was closest with muslim, other and non-religious, which was not all that surprising because I was fairly certain that a large chunk of the 100 would affiliate with the Muslim religion given all of the Middle-Eastern demographics. I was, however, not expecting to be so far off with Buddhist and Christian. In my mind those are the fairly equal because of the number of countries that might believe them as a main religion.
Language
The most interesting part of this one was the number of people who spoke other languages, I always knew that there were other languages but I was unaware of just how many and how prominent they were in the world. I was surprised by how few spoke Arabic and Chinese (even though Chinese still had a higher number across the board) because I thought those were spoken more widely. If fewer languages were in Other, it definitely wouldn't have been as high. I was also surprised by how many points Malay-Indonesia and how few English got. English because though only a few countries speak it as the main language, I thought many spoke it as a secondary language.
Geography
As far as geography goes, I should have thought more ahead of the amount of people in Asia and how few people live in North America given that North America is basically only two countries and Asia has a huge amount with some of the most populated cities in the world. Given that thought process though, I was counting on Latin America because of the highly populated cities. I was most surprised by the amount of people who live in North America because it seems like one of the main places people immigrate to from other countries.
Analysis of Total
I was surprisingly close with certain parts of technology, for instance the amount of people who own computers (22) and are internet users (30) were spot on. With that said, I went into those with a fairly cynical view of the world. Thinking of the amount of people who I've met in various countries all use the internet, though they might not own a computer necessarily. I understood that a lot of the world is impoverished, but didn't realize until the answers came back what it means to be privileged in certain countries versus others. Given these views, I was really surprised at how far away I was from guessing the poverty in the world. The question was how many people live on more than 2 U.S dollars per day (52) and how many live on less (48). Though I'm relieved (and at the same time disturbed) that it's about half and half, I understand that 2 U.S dollars per day is almost nothing the United States. It's almost a forth of minimus wage per hour in this country, which is really not enough to live off of. Most people in our school spend more than 2 dollars on food every day.
Another category I was interested in was Urban and Rural dwellers. My guess was 70 would be urban dwellers and 30 rural; however, I was off again. The real statistics are urban 51 and rural 49. This caught me by surprise. I thought because cities are such a huge market for jobs and international affairs they would be more populated with people who live, work, and raise a family there. That the amount of people living in rural areas would be fewer because of fewer job opportunities and because of generally fewer people to more land, whereas cities tend to be the opposite.
When tallying the amount of people per category, I realized that I just don't know much about the living environments, income, death rates, form of government, etc of those in the surrounding countries.
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