No one plays Fortnite
I do a little activity with my students each year with whatever new thing is super popular at the time. The last time I did it was with Fortnite:
Me: Everyone plays Fortnite, right?
Class: Yeah, Fortnite is awesome!
Me: Sooooo, many people play Fortnite! Forty million players each month. FORTY MILLION!
Kid who plays Fortnite: It’s like the whole world plays Fornite!
Me: No one plays Fortnite.
Class: … what?
Me: Let me show you. Forty million divided by the Earth’s population, we’ll round it off to 7.7 billion, that’s 0.0051. Convert that to a percentage … it’s 0.5% of the population who play Fortnite. That’s half a percent of people worldwide play Fortnite, at best. 0.5 isn’t a statistically significant result, in fact, at that number we can’t be sure people are deliberately playing Fortnite, or of that figure is purely chance. Therefore, statistically speaking, 0% of the population play Fortnite. No one plays Fortnite.
It’s a statistical nonsense trick of course, but the point is made; the world is far bigger than your circle of friends. What you think is big deal maybe nothing globally.
It’s also a reminder to parents, that when Johnny comes home and begs for you to buy him the new video game, or let him join the newest social media platform, because EVERYONE has it already … it’s a lie - hyperbole at the very least. Maybe lots of his friends do, maybe just one has, either way it’s still your choice, not his.
Maybe you don’t want your child to be friends with the nine-year-old boy who plays GTA V anyway.
At least now you can use Math to support your argument.
