Social Experiment 1: The Beginning

Last week two things happened to me that might just change my life. The first was reading a book entitled “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.” The second was getting tagged in three Facebook notes. Because of these two events, I am about to embark on a series of 25 social experiments, which I will chronicle here. How did it begin? I’ll start with Facebook. I always start with Facebook—usually to the detriment of my to-do lists.

If you have a Facebook and have friends on it, you’ve likely been tagged in the latest incarnation of self-survey. This one is titled “25 You Didn’t Know About Me” or some variation on that theme. The rules are as follows: “Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.”

I am generally opposed to the “bored, stole this from so and so, here’s an unbelievably long list of movies I like and my favorite colors” kind of Facebook note. However, the 25 Things lists caught my interest. Here was a succinct listing of facts I presumably didn’t know about a person who wanted to know something about me. I learned such things as “I’m too sexy for my glasses” and “I know the Cullens aren't real, but I would still go live in Forks just because it's pretty” and “I never did grow out of the dinosaur phase when I was a kid. That might explain why I'm a geology major.” Entertained by these fascinating insights into my friends’ psyches, I slowly warmed up to the concept.

In that spirit, I’ve begun to play 20 Questions with my friends. I ask a question, serious or wacky or in-between. They answer, and ask one of their own. Soon the obvious options are gone, and you have to get creative. I have found out more about friends in one forty-five minute session than I knew about them in the one or two years since I met them. It makes for rapid fire conversation, surprises, and laughs. I’m addicted. It’s changed the way I approach friendship—and other relationships in my life, too. This was my first social experiment, the beginning.

What clinched the idea to do more? Esquire editor A.J. Jacobs’ book, “The Year of Living Biblically.” Somewhat of an immersion journalist, he created this project from his curiosity about biblical literalism. He compiled a list of every law in the Bible, from Thou Shall Not Steal to admonitions against boiling a young kid in its mother’s milk, and set out to follow them all. Detailed in his diary-like bestseller, it was an incredibly rich and interesting journey, and left him with surprising insights and colorful memories. And a movie deal. All in all, not a bad trade off for wearing a robe around New York and growing a supernaturally long beard. I found myself admiring his creative brand of bravery. What am I missing out on by living life in my comfort zone? Inspired by the Facebook note, I decided to carry out twenty five sets of abnormal behavior over the rest of the semester, just to see what I can learn.

So here I go: one book and three notes launching one semester of twenty-five social experiments. I can feel the weird looks already.