Some background if you’re interested…
A few years back, I ran some surveys on fans of the Dear Hank and John podcast, a podcast hosted by two brothers, Hank and John Green (or John and Hank Green, depending on who you ask…) Both men are successful authors, run a hugely popular youtube channel (Vlogbrothers) and more importantly, generally do good for the world (while also managing to be both silly and heartwarming.) It is difficult to overstate how much good they’ve done for the world, from nonprofit coffee, socks, and soap subscription services whose profits go to help build maternal health centers in Sierra Leone through Partners in Health, to Study Hall, a program that allows students to gain college credits through Youtube courses. They are also responsible for the hugely successful educational Youtube channels Crash Course and Sci Show (among many others at their company Complexly — if you have kids in school — they’ve probably watched these videos to help them with their homework (or just for fun.) More recently, they managed to be a significant part of a movement convincing a pharmaceutical company to reduce the cost of crucial tuberculosis drugs for low-income countries.
now for what you’ve been dying to know
Anyways, on their podcast a few years ago someone asked about the best way to hold a chip while eating. This led to a discussion of whether or not it was appropriate to lick your fingers while eating flavored potato chips (a notion John was firmly against). This discussion led me to post a survey to the Nerdfighters reddit page as well as to r/samplesize (a page devoted to posting and participating in surveys), which asked whether people lick their fingers while they are eating flavored chips and whether they lick their fingers after they have finished. A total of 638 people responded.
Figure 1. The CDC recommends to wash your hands for the amount of time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice — don’t forget to scrub under those finger-nails!
So… when it comes to licking fingers while eating chips, it looks like we’re almost at an even split! As for after respondents have finished eating, a clear majority wants to enjoy those chips down to the last orange-tinged speck. At least when it comes to the end of the snack, it looks like John Green has his work cut out for him if he wants to change this behavior.
I really enjoy doing these silly surveys and I’d love to be able to do more! While I get some volunteer responses, to get a good sample, I also pay survey-takers. If you enjoy this kind of content and want to see more, please throw a few bucks my way!