THE CUBING COMMUNITY MEGASURVEY 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work follows in the footsteps of the r/Cubers tradition of yearly Megasurveys, of which this is the fifth instalment. For the first time we've been able to integrate the responses and experience of our colleagues from China, whose communities do not always have access to the same online spaces. We're happy to present the results of this survey as a whole, reuniting these two big communities The following people contributed to this project: You guys were awesome, The r/Cubers mods: have been running the survey for the • welcoming and super supportive past 5 years, wrote and managed the bulk of it and proofread this during the whole analysis process! whole monster of a document. Thank you naliuj, gilzu, stewy, greencrossonleft, topppits, g253, pianocube93 and leinadium! It's been a blast discussing with you, Ruimin Yan / CubeRoot : provided great ideas for the • getting your ideas and seeing you recruit survey, helped coordinate between the east and the west, a thousand people in a matter of days! leveraged his online standing and following to gather all respondents across China and re-translated most this document • Justin Yang: translated the survey into mandarin and helped You have no excuse for speaking re-translate answers during the re-combination and cleanup flawless french (on top of all phase your other languages) at your ridiculously young age! About the author of this document: Basilio Noris is an older cuber, who has spent the past 15 years working on understanding and measuring human behaviour. He spends way too much time playing with data and looking for ways in which to present it. Also, don't get him started talking about fonts... 2 AND BEFORE WE FORGET... A Very Big thank you to the 1501 participants who filled in the survey from all the sides of the globe You made this a serious dataset with a sample size that rivals professional surveys in politics, psychology and behavioural sciences 3 ONE BIG COMMUNITY, WITH ITS MANY COLORS AND VOICES The r/Cubers 魔龙 community The Dragons The Aliens The data we present here comes mainly from two sources, that we affectionately call Dragons and Aliens. This is a useful shortcut, as these two big groups don't often meet each other, but it does not come close to portraying all the many facets, nuances, warts and beauty of the cubing community as a whole, most of whose members did not participate to this survey. Keep that in mind when going through this document and seeing some differences between some somewhat arbitrary groups. And now, less go...! 4 THE DATASET IN NUMBERS : MILLENNIA WORTH OF EXPERIENCE 1'501 2'803 years 23'216 puzzles respondents of cubing xp in our collections 01101100 01100001 01100011 01100001 01110000 01110010 01100001 01100011 01100001 01101101 ✓ 01110000 01100001 662 hours 60 hours 366'150 of survey time of data analysis datapoints (excl. Cube Collections) 5 Chapter 1 : WE THE CUBERS A POPULATION THAT SKEWS MOSTLY YOUNG AND MALE, BUT NOT ONLY! AGE OF THE ONLINE CUBING COMMUNITY 14- 32% AVERAGE 15-16 20% median 17-18 16% 16.5 18.3 19-20 10% years old 21-25 12% 26-30 4% 31-35 2% 36-40 2% 41-50 2% 17.5 20.6 51+ 1% years old years old 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% N=1486 GENDER SPLITS 3X3 AVERAGE 88% 2% BY GENDER Gents Fabulous 18.20 17.81 10% 18.60 Ladies 7 MOST OF US ARE RIGHT-HANDED, SOME LEFT-HANDED, AND MANY OF US THINK WE ARE AMBIDEXTROUS WHEN WE PROBABLY ARE NOT HANDEDNESS OF THE ONLINE CUBING COMMUNITY Left Right Handed Handed 8% 83% 9% 3X3 AVERAGE BY Ambidextrous IN THE GENERAL HANDEDNESS POPULATION 18.00 17.83 10% 89% 17.15 Call them whatever we want, 1% but ambidextrous people are definitely a bit more dextrous than the others. As for Lefty/Righty, the difference is not statistically significant 8 WE DISCOVERED CUBING ON AVERAGE 3 YEARS AGO, BUT STARTED SPEEDCUBING MORE RECENTLY; IN MANY CASES, HOWEVER, WE STARTED AT (ROUGHLY) THE SAME TIME HOW LONG AGO DID YOU HOW LONG AGO DID YOU GET INTERESTED IN CUBING? START SPEEDCUBING? 1 month 2% 1 month 7% 3 months 4% 3 months 11% 6 months 7% 6 months 13% 1 y 10% 1 y 17% median 1.5 y 8% 1.5 y 10% 1 y 2 y 13% median 2 y 13% 3 y 13% 3 y 4 y 11% 3 y 11% 5 y 10% 4 y 5% 6+ y 13% 5 y 5% 10+ y 6% 6+ y 4% 15+ y 1% 10+ y 1% In the 80's 1% 15+ y 0% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% CORRELATION BETWEEN CUBING many 6y+ cubers AND SPEEDCUBING 2.5 year 3 years 1 year 1.5 years 3y Aliens started on speedcubing 1y average half a year before the dragons few cubers 1m Started speedcubing last 1m 1y 3y 6y+ month, 6 years after cubing getting interested in cubing 9 OK, BUT HOW FAST ARE WE? OUR MEDIAN AVERAGE IS SUB18! THE DRAGONS AND ALIENS ARE AVERAGING EXACTLY THE SAME CUBERS GLOBAL 3X3 AVERAGE Sub6 0% 99.9% MEDIAN GLOBAL Sub7 0% 99.6% AVERAGE Sub8 0% 99.4% Sub9 2% 97.7% Sub10 3% 94.7% Sub11 90.8% 4% All Sub12 5% 85.5% cubers Sub13 7% 78.7% Sub14 7% 72.0% 17.7 17.7s 17.7 Sub15 6% 66.3% Sub16 6% 60.5% Sub17 6% 54.7% Without the oldies* Sub18 5% 49.8% Sub19 6% 44.0% 17.6 17.4s 16.9 Sub20 4% 39.9% Sub25 14% 25.6% *Median global average if we remove all cubers above Sub30 10% 16.1% 36 years old. Brought to you by one of the oldies! Sub40 8% 8.5% Sub50 4% 4.3% Sub60 3% 1.7% Here is where that half a year Sub90 1% 0.7% If you average advantage in speedcubing Sub120 1% 0.2% sub20, you're experience comes to the fore Sup120 0% faster than 0% 4% 8% 12% 16% 40% of cubers 10 Chapter 2 : CUBING LIFE PRACTICE MAKES IT PERFECT: THOSE OF US PUTTING IN THE TIME EVERY DAY TEND TO BE FASTER THAN THE LAZIER (OR BUSIER) OF US! HOW OFTEN DO YOU CUBE WHAT IS THE LONGEST BREAK 4+ hours every day 5% I am unable to stop! 12% A couple of hours A couple of days 22% 24% every day A couple of weeks 17% One hour each day 33% A couple of months 13% I do a handful of 27% Half a year 10% solves every day A year or so 9% Once per week 6% More than a year 16% More rarely 5% Several years 1% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% GLOBAL 3X3 AVERAGE BY CUBING AMOUNT More rarely 19.0 Once per week 19.1 I do a handful of solves every day 19.0 Hardcore cubers doing 4+ hours a One hour each day 17.4 day tend to be more at the beginning 17.0 4+ hours every day of their cubing career, hence the A couple of hours every day 16.4 slightly slower averages than people 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 cubing slightly less time per day. 12 MOSTLY WE CUBE AT HOME : WHEN WE'RE OUTSIDE HALF OF US DON'T BRING ANY CUBES! HOW MANY PUZZLES DO YOU WHERE DO YOU USUALLY CUBE? USUALLY CARRY WITH YOU? At home 64% 0 53% In public (when I'm waiting 18% 1-2 40% / when I'm bored) At school, during breaks 18% 3-5 5% In public (all the time) 11% 6-10 1% At school, while in class 7% 11+ 0% 0% 25% 50% 75% 0% 25% 50% 75% GLOBAL 3X3 AVERAGE BY AMOUNT OF CUBES USUALLY CARRIED 0 17.3 1-2 18.2 The data is in ! The more 3-5 17.9 cubes you have on you, the faster you will be! 6-10 14.9 (Note: that's a joke) 0 15 30 45 60 13 THE FASTER OF US TEND TO TIME MORE SOLVES, BUT THE FASTEST ONES DON'T FORGET UNTIMED SOLVES; THE DRAGONS TEND TO SKEW MORE TIMED THAN THE ALIENS "WHEN I CUBE, I..." SOME REGIONAL DIFFERENCES ...only do untimed solves 2% ...mostly do untimed solves 18% ...do timed and untimed 25% solves in equal part ...mostly do timed solves 46% 59% 49% ...only do timed solves do mostly or only do mostly or only 10% timed solves timed solves 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% GLOBAL 3X3 AVERAGE BY TYPE OF CUBING ACTIVITY ...only do untimed solves 35.0 ...m..o.osntly do untimed solves 23.8 35.0 ...do timed and u.n..tmi.m.o.osentdly s dolov eusn itnim eeqdu aslo plvaerst 19.203.8 35.0 The fastest cubers do ...do timed and u.n..tmimose..td.loy sn dolylov deuosn itnim eeqdu aslo plvaerst 151.39.203.8 mostly timed solves, but not only, putting in some ...do timed and untime..d.o snolylv deos itnim eeqdu aslo plvaerst 11561..390.0 ...mostly do timed solves untimed practice seems ...m..o.osntly do timed solves0 111565..30 30 45 60 to be useful! ...mostly do timed solves0 1165.0 30 45 60 0 15 30 45 60 14 IF YOU NEED TO PROVE THAT CUBING IS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY : A LOT OF US STARTED BECAUSE WE SAW SOMEONE CUBING, AND MOST OF US HAVE CUBING FRIENDS HOW DID YOU HAVE YOU EVER INTRODUCED DISCOVER CUBING? SOMEONE TO CUBING? I saw someone solving and got interested 39% 82% My parents got me a cube Yes 22% and I started from there A friend/family 21% introduced me to it I saw a video on youtube 17% 18% / a documentary No 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% DO YOU HAVE FRIENDS IRL HOW DID THE COVID19 PANDEMIC WITH WHOM YOU CUBE? INFLUENCE YOUR CUBING? No 37% I cube more 56% Yes, many 36% I cube less 14% Yes, but only one 23% About the same 6% I started during Other 4% 21% the lockdowns 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% Other 5% 0% 15% 30% 45% 60% 15 AND WE WONDER WHY NORMIES FIND OUR CUBING DISCUSSIONS DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW..