Science Projects on Chain Letters
In 2008 the National Science Foundation released a study revealing that people are selective when sending email chain letters. This study attempts to discredit the claim that chain letters are viral, meaning they multiply and spread like an epidemic. The research project took years of monitoring and surveying by professionals. But a science student can use research studies like this one as a foundation for his chain letter project.
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Money Making Schemes vs. Good Luck Chain Letters
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Chain letters gained notoriety during the 1980s. The infamous Dave Rhodes letter is one example of a "make money fast" chain letter scheme. The letter asks a recipient to add her name to a list and forward the message to a handful of friends. All the while giving assurances that once the recipient's name reaches No. 5 on the list she will receive payment. It is letters such as these that caused the U.S. Postal Office to declare chain letters a form of gambling and declare the letters illegal. Chain letters are only illegal if they request money or promise a large return of money. Some letters offer good luck if forwarded. These may be harmless but have a tendency to fill up an email inbox. Occasionally a chain letter will contain a call to action or ask a recipient to sign a petition. A social science project inspired by the two different types of chain letters begins with a survey among a select group of people. Begin with a question such as "which type of chain letter is a person most likely to forward: One that makes money or one that sends luck?" Form a hypothesis that takes one side. The survey anonymously asks subjects the type of letter they may send and why. Survey results are reported using a graph. The final project displays copies of sample letters, survey copies and graphs depicting the results.
Chain Letter Popularity
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Individuals respond differently to chain letters. What some find annoying may be regarded as a thoughtful gesture by others, especially with good luck chain letters. A student will be able to identify the popularity of the chain letter by writing an original letter and sending it to contacts. After sending out the letter a student follows up with each contact, informs him of the experiment and asks for his feedback. Make a questionnaire for the feedback to help your subjects answer with specific information that will be useful when preparing the final project. Use the feedback to determine the appeal of chain letters.
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Chain Letters and Society
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Some chain letters are written with the intent of inspiring social responsibility. For example, a petition for the support of public broadcasting began circulating 1995. Other chain letters contain news bites about war or invite recipients to take action against tax reforms. Although chain letters contain vastly different content they are structured to play on the reader's emotions. The student planning the project will construct a hypothesis stating her opinion of which cause is most likely to receive support based off her sociology or psychology studies. She is able to study the effect of each letter's emotional content by conducting a survey. Provide a sample of each type of letter in the classroom: one reporting war, one deriding higher taxes and one asking for support of a public service. Display the letters where they will be visible to everyone. Set a bowl or jar near each letter and ask students to vote for which letter they would send along. Tally the votes and report the results in your final presentation. The experiment will bring to light the values of the classroom and also the likelihood of each chain letter's success. A student's final report will include reasoning in support, or disproving, her original hypothesis.
Chain Letter Debate
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Douglas Watrous, a systems programmer for the Laboratory of Computer Science Research at Rutgers University, calls chain letters a "waste of time." But according to a press release posted by the National Science Foundation, David Liben-Nowell of Carleton College and Jon Kleinberg of Cornell University see the tracking of chain letters as a means to deduce the flow of information via social networking, making the chain letter more useful than Watrous imagined. A social science project uses these types of debates to structure an argument for, or against, chain letters. The project may even go so far as to stage a live debate between two students, then turn the floor over to the audience to gather the populace opinion.
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References
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