Your friends may love you, but they love pizza more. That’s according to research from MIT. This is the same MIT that takes over a 4.0 GPA and 2300+ on the SAT to get in. So, tuition money well spent I say.
The study focused on digital privacy. The authors asked 3,108 MIT students to give up their friends’ e-mail addresses in return for a pizza. An amazing 98% agreed to do so. I can’t believe this. They should’ve called this study “Snitches Love Pizza.”
The authors wrote:
“Whereas people say they care about privacy, they are willing to relinquish private data quite easily when incentivized to do so.”
Well, to be fair, it’s pizza and students are starving. They’d give their friends up for only a slice of pizza, nevermind the whole thing.
Like anything, you have to read further into this.
Half of the students were given a small incentive in the form of an order of pizza to share with friends and 98% of those shared emails. Fewer students — 94% — gave up friends’ email addresses when not given any incentives. In the non-incentivized group, 6% input fake emails to protect their friends’ identities. Not giving an email address was also not an option.
That last sentence is important. Saying no wasn’t an option, they had to give something up. How many would’ve declined to say anything if it was an option?
In any case, this study brings up a bunch of important points.
No one can deny the awesomeness of pizza. MIT students are snitches. And we can fight terrorism by offering terrorists pizza, who’ll then give their friends up. Instead of bombs, America needs more pizza.