Taking data with a grain of salt – An embarrassing story of sex drive and depression

When I started using CLUE (the period app) my life changed.

Tracking my well being and being presented with predictive data regarding mood and period gave me huge advantage in planning my life.

I also, sometimes, record my level of sex-drive because it is one of the hallmarks for stress, depression and mood changes.

So, I thought I was recording my “lack of sex drive” when I ticked in the “Withdrawl” option in the app.

You’re shaking your head right now. Or you’re laughing your brains out. I’m glad I could amuse you :).

Are you an idiot? Have you been living in a cave?!?!

No, neither, but, I am not a native English speaker and the only term I have heard is Pull-out method.

You see, the entire app comes in categories, example: Emotions. Each choice has an opposite e.g. Happy and Sad

And here we have Motivated and Unmotivated, Productive and Unproductive

We also have Focused and Distracted

Clear and proportionally opposite reactions and feelings.

So you see it was not unreasonable for me to assume that “Withdrawal” was the opposite of “High Sex Drive”

I mean Protected and Unprotected are the opposite.

And what is the symbol? I was confused until I asked a friend, who gave me the infomercial version. I never felt more like a 13-year-old.

So. There was a logic behind my systematic error.

But, somewhere out there, a data analyst is creating a model for science, market research, AI algorithms and god knows what, based on wrongful data where someone who is sad, exhausted and withdrawn is having sex every day.

I hope that I am an anomaly. I hope that nobody is as confused as me. But, one can never be sure.

No matter how well you design something, you will get an amount of flawed data, so make sure to take it with a grain of salt.