The Nonlinear Library EA - Empirical data on how teenagers hear about EA by Jamie Harris
Nov 30, 2023
08:42
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Empirical data on how teenagers hear about EA, published by Jamie Harris on November 30, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
How do people hear about and get involved in effective altruism (EA)? We have good data about this for active community members who fill out the
EA survey, but it's harder to get data on people earlier in their exploration or people in demographic groups that have less outreach and services specifically for them.
Here, I share some data from 63 smart, curious, and altruistic UK teenagers who participated in programmes run by myself (aka
Leaf) who reported to have heard of effective altruism before.
The key results and takeaways:
The most common places that people first or primarily heard about EA seem to be Leaf itself,
Non-Trivial, and school - none of these categories show up as prominently on the
EA survey.
Many people heard about EA from multiple sources. Using a more permissive counting system, the most common sources people mentioned at least briefly were Leaf and hearing from a friend.
(More tentative) 80,000 Hours, LessWrong, and podcasts seem to have been less important for this group than you might expect from having seen the EA survey.
Methodology & context
This information comes from 15-18 year olds in the UK who were offered a place on one of two programmes by Leaf this year (2023):
Changemakers Fellowship: One-week summer residential programme with follow-up mentorship to meet other changemakers tackling pressing social issues, and fast-track your progress towards making a major difference. Students of any and all subjects.
History to shape history (for the better): 5-week online fellowship exploring how to use the lessons of history to make a positive impact and steer humanity onto a better path. History students.
I advertised both of these programmes as for "smart, curious, and ambitiously altruistic" teenagers - effective altruism was not discussed on the programme landing pages but was highlighted for transparency on Leaf's "
About" page and
FAQ.
After being offered a place on the programme, participants were sent a consent form, which included various other questions. The data in this post all comes from people who first answered "Yes" (out of "Yes", "No", or "Maybe") to the question "Before hearing about this programme, had you heard of the term 'effective altruism'?".
Changemakers Fellowship
History to shape history
Applied
758
154
Filled out consent form
54 (7% of applicants)
66 (43% of applicants)
Answered "Yes" to having heard about EA
36 (67% of respondents)
27 (41% of respondents)
I then informally analysed free-text, qualitative responses to the question "If you had heard of effective altruism and/or longtermism before hearing about this programme, please describe in your own words how you heard about them or explored them."
Applicants to the Changemakers Fellowship who hadn't participated in Leaf programmes previously were 28% white and 40% male. History to shape history applicants were 50% white, 27% male. All were aged 15-18 and live in the United Kingdom.
This appendix contains:
A table separating out results for the participants of the two programmes and providing one example of an answer from each type of category
The full set of qualitative responses and my categorisations of them
A table with info about how people heard about Leaf itself
Results
I categorised responses twice:
"Primary" - I selected only one option from each response, prioritising whichever seemed to come chronologically first for them or (if this was unclear) seemed more important to their journey.
"Permissive" - counting as many different things as they mentioned, however briefly, and using a more permissive standard for what counted as relevant as opposed to "NA".
Category
Primary
Permissive
Indirectly or earlier via Leaf
14 (22%)
18 (29%)...
How do people hear about and get involved in effective altruism (EA)? We have good data about this for active community members who fill out the
EA survey, but it's harder to get data on people earlier in their exploration or people in demographic groups that have less outreach and services specifically for them.
Here, I share some data from 63 smart, curious, and altruistic UK teenagers who participated in programmes run by myself (aka
Leaf) who reported to have heard of effective altruism before.
The key results and takeaways:
The most common places that people first or primarily heard about EA seem to be Leaf itself,
Non-Trivial, and school - none of these categories show up as prominently on the
EA survey.
Many people heard about EA from multiple sources. Using a more permissive counting system, the most common sources people mentioned at least briefly were Leaf and hearing from a friend.
(More tentative) 80,000 Hours, LessWrong, and podcasts seem to have been less important for this group than you might expect from having seen the EA survey.
Methodology & context
This information comes from 15-18 year olds in the UK who were offered a place on one of two programmes by Leaf this year (2023):
Changemakers Fellowship: One-week summer residential programme with follow-up mentorship to meet other changemakers tackling pressing social issues, and fast-track your progress towards making a major difference. Students of any and all subjects.
History to shape history (for the better): 5-week online fellowship exploring how to use the lessons of history to make a positive impact and steer humanity onto a better path. History students.
I advertised both of these programmes as for "smart, curious, and ambitiously altruistic" teenagers - effective altruism was not discussed on the programme landing pages but was highlighted for transparency on Leaf's "
About" page and
FAQ.
After being offered a place on the programme, participants were sent a consent form, which included various other questions. The data in this post all comes from people who first answered "Yes" (out of "Yes", "No", or "Maybe") to the question "Before hearing about this programme, had you heard of the term 'effective altruism'?".
Changemakers Fellowship
History to shape history
Applied
758
154
Filled out consent form
54 (7% of applicants)
66 (43% of applicants)
Answered "Yes" to having heard about EA
36 (67% of respondents)
27 (41% of respondents)
I then informally analysed free-text, qualitative responses to the question "If you had heard of effective altruism and/or longtermism before hearing about this programme, please describe in your own words how you heard about them or explored them."
Applicants to the Changemakers Fellowship who hadn't participated in Leaf programmes previously were 28% white and 40% male. History to shape history applicants were 50% white, 27% male. All were aged 15-18 and live in the United Kingdom.
This appendix contains:
A table separating out results for the participants of the two programmes and providing one example of an answer from each type of category
The full set of qualitative responses and my categorisations of them
A table with info about how people heard about Leaf itself
Results
I categorised responses twice:
"Primary" - I selected only one option from each response, prioritising whichever seemed to come chronologically first for them or (if this was unclear) seemed more important to their journey.
"Permissive" - counting as many different things as they mentioned, however briefly, and using a more permissive standard for what counted as relevant as opposed to "NA".
Category
Primary
Permissive
Indirectly or earlier via Leaf
14 (22%)
18 (29%)...