Menstrual Cycles, 50 Cent, and Right Swipes

My name is Ahnjili, and I’m here to talk to you about my menstrual cycle, 50 Cent and right swipes. So in other words I’m going to talk about how I spent the last six months recording my own internet uses in concert to my hormonal changes.

So I’m a cognitive neuroscience researcher and I love reading random papers about the human body, and so I stumbled upon this one paper called How ones menstrual cycle can influence the cognitive function and there emotional processing. So I decided upon myself to take a look at how my internet use is effected by hormonal changes.

And so in case you need to catch up on some basic biology whether a woman wants to or not, her body definitely prepares for her having a baby each month. And so basically an egg is thrown into the line of firing in case she get lucky and it’s splashed out during her menstrual cycle in case she doesn’t.

And so I used a very simple smartphone app called My Period Diary, which records and predicts whenever I’m menstruating and whenever I’m most fertile, and I didn’t take my ovulation data into account.

And so the reason why I used my internet use as a representation of my cognitive function is because I’m really passionate about technology, and I see myself as a transhumanist. And I was actually inspired by Andy Clarks, Natural Born Cyborg, which basically states that the human mind emerges not from the human brain, but in relation to how our tools affect the way the human mind works.

And so basically through ontological design we create these tools and they redesign us. So I shamefully have to admit I spend on average 9.8 hours a day racking with computers, tablets, smartphones and all sorts. And as a consequence, my mind is being routinely being converted into digital data, and this data valiance allows me to recognize, recall and reflect any thought, image, or event that I ad in the past. And as part of the smartphone generation I’ve been able to express my various cognitive functions and emotional processes throughout a variety of media types.

And so I’ve actually achieved or created a transcript of myself through self-visualizing. So being on a budget I’ve only used Google Chrome extensions to record my use as time snaps as an example, which basically records how much time I spend on various websites, and unfortunately Facebook is where I spend the majority of my time, but merely for academic reasons and not for socializing.

And so for the sake of this talk, I’m only going to talk about four aspects that I looked into. I looked at a variety, but I’m just going to talk about my online shopping through Essos, Tinder, Facebook, and YouTube.

And so for Facebook, I used a Google Chrome extension which basically not only how much time I spent on Facebook, but how much time I spent on looing through people’s profiles or looking through pictures for posting on various pages. And for You Tube I used another Google Chrome extension which basically also records how much time I spend on each video, each channels I frequently click on.

As for Tinder I couldn’t find an app that would record my left or right swipe, so I just did everything manually which wasn’t too much of a hassle, but I looked at not only the number of swipes but also the various props and profiles.

So for my online shopping I found that there was no change in the amount of money I spent or the amount of time I spent shopping online, which was great. It was actually supported by a study that I had read prior to the project saying that actually there are no hormonal changes on ones effects on economic behavior which I found quite comforting.

But I did find something quite strange, that if I was shopping when I was most fertile I actually bought more red colored items. Infact it was the only time that I bought red colored items. This might have been swayed that I also read a paper earlier, saying that red enhances man’s attraction to a woman, and surprisingly vise versa. So I guess if you’re looking for a partner wear read.

So on that note, my Tinder use and incase those of you who are lucky enough to be in long term committed relationships and that are not aware how Tinder works, Tinder presents to you a series of profile pictures and if you like someone you swipe right, and if you don’t like someone you swipe left.

And so I wanted to record my Tinder use because I found another paper that stated that men were more likely to be promiscuous during their fertile phase and a little less choosy about their partners which I guess makes reproductive sense. And I found that throughout my cycle of that, there is a significant number of left swipes, so rejections more so than the number of right swipes.

So when comparing my Tinder use from when I was menstruating to when I was most fertile there is significantly more right swipes of people that I’m interested in compared to when I was actually menstruating.

And so looking into the props I wanted to see if there was a particular partner that I was interested in based on a variety of props. So having children or going to a gym, or have instruments or cars. You actually meet a strange number f profiles of photos on Tinder, but overall there was the type of profile picture that I was attracted to did not vary throughout my cycle which was nice. I mean predominantly a guy who showed off at the gym were more likely to succeed but it wasn’t a significant difference.

So in terms of my Facebook usage though the amount of time I spent on Facebook didn’t vary at all. However, the types of profiles I was interacting with did vary. So when I was most fertile, I was interacting more with male profiles in comparison to females.

And finally, I just want to talk about which artist I was listening to the most or the much videos I tend to replay on YouTube, and looking at this graph you can’t really tell that much. It looks pretty chaotic, but when I isolated each of the artists I found that 50 Cent is a strangely accurate marker of when I was most fertile and he was the only time that I played his music. So know when I listen to 50 Cent my body wants to meet that baby.

So I found out in conclusion that because I had read all of these papers prior to conducting my experiment I might have had a little bias tendency to follow my body, but I’m still a logical person throughout.

So thank you for listening.