A Facebook birthday experiment

A friend and I were wondering how many people would notice if you changed your birthday on your Facebook profile within a month of your actual birthday.

Since my birthday was last month, I got to be the guinea pig.

Total birthday wishes in December: 18
Total birthday wishes in January: 18
Total people who wished me "Happy Birthday" twice: 5
Total people who figured out something was up: 9

I was really surprised there weren't more duplicates. It also showed me who does and doesn't know my real birthday (ironically, I know the birthdays of 3 of the 18 people from January).

Our original experiment involved switching the birthday each month or every other week to see how long it would take some of those people to figure it out, but after doing it once, there's no way you'd get me to do it again! There's attention you get on your birthday that you should ONLY get on your birthday, and if you get it on any other day, it just feels wrong - sort of like you're violating the attention people give to such an occasion.

But there you go Mitch, we now know what happens when you lie about your birthday on Facebook.