Here we are back in the rough and tumble world of making money online -- little bits at a time with Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk). If you’ve been following my series Who Works for Mturk and Why, you’ve now come to my fourth and final installment. In my last article, I wrote about data collected by researchers from Mturk workers, focusing on the marital status of workers and how much time they spent working for Mturk.
In this article you get the big WHY for workers on Mturk. What motivates people to slave over a “hot” computer for hours for just pennies an hour.
Well, there are a lot of people with a multitude of reasons out there. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to attempt to stick data from U.S. worker as much as I can because the differences in standards of living when comparing the U.S. to other countries are striking and the reasons are pretty obvious why foreign workers do work on Mturk.
In this article you get the big WHY for workers on Mturk. What motivates people to slave over a “hot” computer for hours for just pennies an hour.
Well, there are a lot of people with a multitude of reasons out there. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to attempt to stick data from U.S. worker as much as I can because the differences in standards of living when comparing the U.S. to other countries are striking and the reasons are pretty obvious why foreign workers do work on Mturk.
The Big Why
I sometimes wonder why anyone would work for Mturk, but then I just look in the mirror and understand.
The research I’m using as the basis for this article put some probing questions to Mturk workers and found out some interesting facts. Nearly 70% of U.S. workers stated that they found working for Mturk to be “fruitful way to spend free time and get some cash.” But conversely, they also said that tasks on Mturk were not fun. So, what I read between the lines is that Mturk is not a lot of fun, but it’s not too challenging of a way to make some extra money. Many (60%) report that Mturk is a good way to kill time and make a little money.
I sometimes wonder why anyone would work for Mturk, but then I just look in the mirror and understand.
The research I’m using as the basis for this article put some probing questions to Mturk workers and found out some interesting facts. Nearly 70% of U.S. workers stated that they found working for Mturk to be “fruitful way to spend free time and get some cash.” But conversely, they also said that tasks on Mturk were not fun. So, what I read between the lines is that Mturk is not a lot of fun, but it’s not too challenging of a way to make some extra money. Many (60%) report that Mturk is a good way to kill time and make a little money.
Here’s comes a telling figure and I will contrast U.S. and India data this time. The question was: Is the money you make on Amazon Mechanical Turk your primary source of income?
India -- 28% U.S. 12%
The follow-up question asked if Mturk was a source of income for less than essential purchases.
India -- 38% U.S. 61%
So, it’s not hard to glean from that that a lot of U.S. workers are using their Mturk money to buy “toys” or other non-essentials. While workers from India actually see Mturk as a substantial and essential income.
Thus ends my series on the “who and why.” Feel free to let us know your why and who?
India -- 28% U.S. 12%
The follow-up question asked if Mturk was a source of income for less than essential purchases.
India -- 38% U.S. 61%
So, it’s not hard to glean from that that a lot of U.S. workers are using their Mturk money to buy “toys” or other non-essentials. While workers from India actually see Mturk as a substantial and essential income.
Thus ends my series on the “who and why.” Feel free to let us know your why and who?
No comments:
Post a Comment