Caching slowdown in September?

[+fizzymagic]

I have several friends whose caching dropped dramatically in September after doing caches every day in August. In fact, a couple of them qualified for a nearby challenge cache for which you have to log exactly one cache in a calendar month.

 

So what do you think? Did the rate of cache finds go down at the start of September because of the "31 days of caching" in August?

[+niraD]

I don't know about others, but I continued my 31 Days of August streak through September, and am continuing it through October as well. I'm planning to get my longest streak to 100 days at least, to match (or exceed) my longest slump.

[+TriciaG]

For me, it has gone down because the weather has gotten worse and the daylight has gotten shorter. We can no longer cache (without flashlights, anyway, which for us isn't as pleasant) in the evenings after work. Also, our weekends have gotten busier since the school year started, so we've done less caching on weekends.

[+lamoracke]

First off, that challenge cache sounds terrible and am glad the current rules forbid that kind of non-caching behavior

 

To answer your question. My caching went down but I do not think it had anything to do with the souvenir challenge. We had some park geotours in the state of Washington which led me to go to over 120 state parks and then another local 20 parks in King County, not to mention the Block Party in all of that. That was my activity from June through August. September was a little bit of a cool down combined with the fact school starts for the kids and it rained like hell in this state.

 

So for me, nope, it went down, but not due to that whatsoever and I did all 31 days.

Edited October 4, 2013 by lamoracke

[+KazumiSun]

August was real hot this year ...I love the Fall for hiking so I look farward to geocaching

[DannyCaffeine]

I think it is a mix of back to school and cold weather. When I go to campus I am usually pooped and don't do as much caching during the week as I would like to. I would assume this goes double for cachers who are grown but have kids they have to get off to school in the AM and home at night.

[+Dogmeat*]

It definitely burnt me out, but I streaked on for a few days afterwards. I actually got more in September than I did in August, though. Spent a couple days going all out. Tomorrow may also be one of those days.

[+bjohio]

I would agree with Dogmeat101, I also had some burnout after my 31 day streak in August. By the end of the month, it felt more like work than fun. Coupled with the fact that I had to "save" my few remaining local caches for days that I knew I would be short on time. This meant that I wold have to allocate a solid hour each day to find just one cache (20-30 drive out, 15 minutes to find, 20-30 minutes drive back home).

 

I proud to say that I accomplished it, but streaks don't really fit my caching style. I'm more of a weekend warrior type of guy.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I found four caches in August and dropped to three finds in September.

[+wmpastor]

I found four caches in August and dropped to three finds in September.

We'll let you slide this time ... since you're active in the forums!

[+desmognathus]

Judging from travel bug activity, I'd say things slowed down considerably.

[+Dogmeat*]

I don't know about you, but I still get an email every now and then from someone discovering a trackable I'm watching at an event in quebec. Other than that, none of the trackables have moved much at all.

[+briansnat]

I haven't noticed a dropoff. In fact I know several geocachers who decided to keep their August streak alive and haven't missed a day since.

[+Crashbangboom]

My kids and I started school so my caching stopped abruptly. I've been too busy with school work to get out much.

[+CanadianRockies]

We did the 31 days of August but found about 50 more caches in September vs. August. Enjoyed the cooler temperatures.

[+fizzymagic]

I appreciate all the personal experience so far, but I am trying to get your opinions on what happened to the global geocaching rate: did it fall from August to September, and, if so, more than would usually be expected from the end of summer? In other words, did the 31 days of caching challenge cause more people to burn out and slow caching, or not?

[+Trav'lin Two]

August and September are the crabbing months where we hang out. So you have to ask yourself, what tastes better, a crab or a cache

[+WarNinjas]

I cant see it having much of an effect on cachers. Maybe they found all the ones in there area slowly over the month to make it last for the streak. Probably still the same amount found overall that they would have found anyways. We have been working on a streak for a few years so it didn't change our caching at all. Not sure about others.

[+redsox_mark]

Yes, the statistics show an increase of logs in August (compared to both July and September). At least in the USA and the UK, which are the only ones I checked.

 

UK:

 

 

USA:

 

[+Traditional Bill]

My caching hasn't necessarily declined, although it went right back to how it was before I started the August streak. I did 36 days last August and it took 31 this year for me to remember how much I can't stand having to go out to find a cache everyday. I enjoy quality caches and when I get out of work late and the only thing around is all the lpc and grc crap, I had to settle for one of those. That's the thing that bothered me the most about the streak challenge. More power to those that have the wherewithal to withstand doing that for 100....200....or even over 365 days.

Edited October 7, 2013 by billdavidsaurus

[+J Grouchy]

I wouldn't say it's "burn out" so much as just going through all the nearest caches and now I have to go too far afield during lunch breaks to get a cache in a reasonable time. Frankly, I am amazed I was able to keep up the 31 day streak...actually carried it a few days into September. Work is also picking up, so I can't take as many full-hour lunch breaks as I used to. You may not be familiar with metro Atlanta traffic, but going further than 2 or 3 miles from the office pretty much burns up the entire hour and that's not even allowing much time for a search.

[+CanadianRockies]

I appreciate all the personal experience so far, but I am trying to get your opinions on what happened to the global geocaching rate: did it fall from August to September, and, if so, more than would usually be expected from the end of summer? In other words, did the 31 days of caching challenge cause more people to burn out and slow caching, or not?

Other than doing a scientific poll, I'm not sure how you would determine if the 31 days of caching contributed significantly to any post-August slowdown.

 

You could look at stats (as redsox_mark did below), but that doesn't provide the information you seek. Maybe a drop is normal from August to September (for various reasons that people have cited). You could look at September 2012 vs. September 2013, but most of any likely increase there probably could be attributed to the overall growth in geocaching. Even if a rigorous multivariate statistical analysis showed an unexpectedly smaller increase in September 2013, how could you attribute the cause specifically to burn-out?

 

I'm sure many geocachers slowed down in September due to burn out. I'm also sure many other geocachers had their interest in geocaching renewed by the August challenge. I suspect that's about the limit of what you'll learn from a forum thread.

[+redsox_mark]

The 2012 data for July - Sept (USA) is more or less flat... i.e. there is the same sort of daily variation (with peaks on weekends) but comparing July, Aug, and Sept they are more or less the same. (Except a spike on Aug 18, which was International Geocaching Day). This chart is 2012 USA:

 

 

From the 2013 data, I don't see a slowdown in September. September is similar to July, as it is in past years. What I see is an increase in August. Which is what we would expect. I know lots of people who normally would only cache 5-10 days a month who did the 31 days.

 

Maybe some did less in September than they normally would have due to burnout. While others got used to caching every day and continued to do so. Overall - the data says that there was a temporary increase in August 2013; then we went back to normal.

 

The data doesn't give proof, that is true. Even that spike on International Geocaching day COULD have been by random chance... but not likely.

[+The Leprechauns]

No slowdown here -- the "31 Days of Geocaching" challenge inspired me to put together a longer streak. I'm still having fun, so I haven't stopped. When the streak seems like a chore, I'll stop.

 

So, I found caches every day of September, and my streak is up to 67 days and counting -- a personal best.

 

Granted, I found more caches in August than I did in September, but that's mainly because of finding 70 caches during my trip to the Block Party in Seattle. I'm making another geocaching trip in October, so the numbers will jump up again.

 

I had a great caching September, including one of my best "bushwacking hike" days ever. Any month when I add three caches to my all-time favorites list is a good month.

[+jdpc3]

98 days so far! Just had a conversation with my hubby/geopartner last night about whether or not we will end our streak at 100. It was a lot of fun this summer when the days were long. We would go out every night after dinner and grab a cache...parks, cemeteries, skirtlifters, points of interest, etc.. We sure saw a lot of places that we normally don't travel on our day to day work routes.

 

But now that the days are getting shorter, it's hard to go caching in a park in the dark...and cemeteries? No way! I feel like our streak may come to an end and we will just have to cache on the weekends. Certainly a slow down coming for us, I think!

[4wheelin_fool]

I got burned out after the first few days,, as I don't have much time to go caching during the week.

[+KazumiSun]

I was not burned out...I love the August challenge...for me it's a true motivator, I found more cache in August than another month, like so many people, I work too much, my weekends are not always Free time, and I have other hobbie aka Gardening . I love Geocaching, my perfect day is to go to a new park/reservation and hike and find caches. I think Geocaching is more about enjoying the day,

[+Harry Dolphin]

I appreciate all the personal experience so far, but I am trying to get your opinions on what happened to the global geocaching rate: did it fall from August to September, and, if so, more than would usually be expected from the end of summer? In other words, did the 31 days of caching challenge cause more people to burn out and slow caching, or not?

 

Sorry that personal experience is not as good as opinion...

I had no interest in the August Souvenir Fest. Too far to travel after work. So, burnout did not affect me. 44 caches in August. 70 in September.

[+fizzymagic]

I asked the question because of my experience in this forum of people generalizing from their individual experience to that of all geocachers. I was impressed by the reluctance of most to do so -- maybe there is hope after all!

 

I actually collected data on the number of logs per day this summer compared with the same time last year, and there is a very clear signal that the "31 Days of Geocaching" did have a significant effect during August, and that effect completely disappeared in September. People (on average) did not continue their streaks; in fact, the rate fell to pretty much the same level as last year, which to me indicates that there could well have been some burnout.

 

For tonight, I will simply show the daily log rate; there are enormous spikes every weekend, so if I get around to it in the next couple of days I will show the rates average by the week, which show the effect even more strongly.

 

Here is what I see, compared with rates for the same time period last year:

 

 

By the way, I found some interesting artifacts in the data that show pretty clear evidence of "cheating" for the cache streak. I will talk more about those later.

[cezanne]

I actually collected data on the number of logs per day this summer compared with the same time last year, and there is a very clear signal that the "31 Days of Geocaching" did have a significant effect during August, and that effect completely disappeared in September. People (on average) did not continue their streaks; in fact, the rate fell to pretty much the same level as last year, which to me indicates that there could well have been some burnout.

 

I did not reply to your question because the burnout question seemed pretty much individual to me and not related to what one observes in the community.

 

I can confirm that the log rates in August in my area have been higher than normal (and higher than in a "normal" August - note that in my country August typically is the strongest month anyway, see e.g. here http://aj-gps.net/find_rate ) and that a lot of cachers who have not cached regularly within the last years, have visited a cache every day in August to obtain all souvenirs. Among those almost all stopped this at September 1, but they just returned to what they did before. I would not associate this to a burnout. There are simply no further souvenirs.

In August some people logged (I do not write visited) 31 caches, but one each day, now many of them also visit not too much caches fewer, but the finds are clustered and caching takes places just on a few days.

 

Several times I encountered log book in August where someone has logged before me (sometimes without a date or a date a few days later) and then they logged the find online with a date for a day where they needed it. Some cachers also logged archived caches. Getting all 31 souvenirs was of big importance to surprisingly many.

 

 

Cezanne

[+DonB]

Sept., Oct, and Nov. are my favorite times of the year to cache.

[+TriciaG]

I'm not sure how "rates returned to normal" suggests burnout. To me, burnout means that people don't go back to normal, but slower than normal. To me, burnout means, "I'm sick of this activity! I'm quitting for a while" and not "I'm sick of this activity! I'm going back to my normal rate of activity."

 

Of course not everyone is going to continue to streak. That doesn't indicate burnout to me, but a return to normal activity.

[+fizzymagic]

I'm not sure how "rates returned to normal" suggests burnout. To me, burnout means that people don't go back to normal, but slower than normal. To me, burnout means, "I'm sick of this activity! I'm quitting for a while" and not "I'm sick of this activity! I'm going back to my normal rate of activity."

 

Of course not everyone is going to continue to streak. That doesn't indicate burnout to me, but a return to normal activity.

 

Two points:

 

Rates did not return to "normal." They returned to the same rate as the year before. Rates have been increasing every year; a return to the same rate as last year represents below what would be expected. You can see that in the rates of the early summer, which are slightly above those from last year.

 

In addition, we have heard anecdotal evidence of people continuing their streaks. If there are some cases of that, then in order for the rates to have dropped as much as they have, there must be at least as many people whose caching rate has dropped to a lower value in order to compensate.

 

That said, the evidence for "burnout" is by no means unambiguous. The data I have is likely not able to definitely answer the question, but I think there is at least a little evidence for burnout.

Edited October 8, 2013 by fizzymagic

[cezanne]

In addition, we have heard anecdotal evidence of people continuing their streaks. If there are some cases of that, then in order for the rates to have dropped as much as they have, there must be at least as many people whose caching rate has dropped to a lower value in order to compensate.

 

Not necessarily, as for a streak it just counts that each day one cache is found while the log rate per month counts the overall number of as found it logged caches.

 

Regardless of whether people cheated or were honest for their streak, I noticed that during August many decided to log only one or a very small number of caches per caching day while without having the streak in mind they would have logged 3 or more caches on one day if those were really close to each other.

 

The 31 days of August made the notion of a streak known to many cachers who never had heard before, but still the souvenirs were the much greater attraction than the streak to many who took part.

 

Cezanne

[+J Grouchy]

In addition, we have heard anecdotal evidence of people continuing their streaks. If there are some cases of that, then in order for the rates to have dropped as much as they have, there must be at least as many people whose caching rate has dropped to a lower value in order to compensate.

 

Not necessarily, as for a streak it just counts that each day one cache is found while the log rate per month counts the overall number of as found it logged caches.

Regardless of whether people cheated or were honest for their streak, I noticed that during August many decided to log only one or a very small number of caches per caching day while without having the streak in mind they would have logged 3 or more caches on one day if those were really close to each other.

 

The 31 days of August made the notion of a streak known to many cachers who never had heard before, but still the souvenirs were the much greater attraction than the streak to many who took part.

 

Cezanne

 

Yeah...I had to hold off on several occasions and revisit an area several days in a row during August where I normally would have tried to sweep that area.

[+fizzymagic]

In addition, we have heard anecdotal evidence of people continuing their streaks. If there are some cases of that, then in order for the rates to have dropped as much as they have, there must be at least as many people whose caching rate has dropped to a lower value in order to compensate.

 

Not necessarily, as for a streak it just counts that each day one cache is found while the log rate per month counts the overall number of as found it logged caches.

 

That is a really good point. With the data I have, I believe I will be able to estimate the average delay between a cache find and the user logging it. If people are doing streaks more, you might expect to see people more likely to log their finds on the day of the find, as opposed to waiting.

 

You will notice from my data above that the biggest increase during August was in non-weekend caches, which is why it is such strong evidence for people doing streaks.

[+MKFmly]

The data does seem interesting however from what is presented in this thread not entirely applicable to answer the question at hand.

 

The graph shown in Post #29 (and a previous posting) indicates gross logs per date; there is no rate to compare. Gross logs are affected by many more variables than the "31 Days of August" promotion and a "September Burn Out" hypothesis to attribute the month to month and year to year differences presented to those factors alone (availability, weather, inclination, travel distance, vacation, number of active cachers, number of caches).

 

As an extention to fizzymagic's signature "97.8% of all statistics are made up on the spot", 95.5 % of the time statistics are interpreted to validate a particular point of view; not reveal one.

 

Personal rate data (gleaned from www.project-gc.com) for what it is worth. It is obvious that Aug 2013, and Aug, Sep 2011 were streaks. In light of all the September rates it is also obvious there is a drop off in gross caches for September and different rates, but it would be incorrect to assign it to "burn out" in our case.

 

August September

Year, Caches Logged, Days Cached, Finds per Caching day, Caches Logged, Days Cached, Finds per Caching day,

2013, 102, 31, 3.3, 7, 3, 2.3,

2012, 7, 5, 1.4, 40, 3, 13.3,

2011, 102, 31, 3.3, 31, 30, 1.0,

2010, 125, 19, 6.6, 0, 0, 0.0,

2009, 72, 15, 4.8, 10, 2, 5.0,

[+fizzymagic]

The data does seem interesting however from what is presented in this thread not entirely applicable to answer the question at hand.

 

The graph shown in Post #29 (and a previous posting) indicates gross logs per date; there is no rate to compare.

 

In what universe do you live that logs per day is not a rate?

 

Gross logs are affected by many more variables than the "31 Days of August" promotion and a "September Burn Out" hypothesis to attribute the month to month and year to year differences presented to those factors alone (availability, weather, inclination, travel distance, vacation, number of active cachers, number of caches).

 

This makes exactly zero sense. The data included logs from time periods before and after August to account for external influences; are you proposing that something magical happened in August to make the logging rate increase for that month only? And in a way that exactly mimics the predicted behavior?

 

As an extention to fizzymagic's signature "97.8% of all statistics are made up on the spot", 95.5 % of the time statistics are interpreted to validate a particular point of view; not reveal one.

 

I am not pushing any particular point of view; in fact, I had done this analysis prior to starting the thread. As I have said, my speculation about burn-out is just that; the data do not have enough information to support it. On the other hand, the signal from August is strong and quite characteristic of what would be expected from the 31 days of caching, so I reported that the data contained such a signal. The probability that the confounding effects you mentioned above would produce the observed data is very small.

 

I would appreciate it in the future if you would refrain from attributing to me a position I do not in fact hold. It might also be useful for you to learn some basic information about statistics before attempting a statistical critique.

Edited October 8, 2013 by fizzymagic

[+MKFmly]

fizzymagic

 

Firstly, I apologise if you felt I attributed you to a position you do not in fact hold. That was not my intent.

 

Did the rate of cache finds go down at the start of September because of the "31 days of caching" in August?

...

In other words, did the 31 days of caching challenge cause more people to burn out and slow caching, or not?

...

People (on average) did not continue their streaks; in fact, the rate fell to pretty much the same level as last year, which to me indicates that there could well have been some burnout.

...

That said, the evidence for "burnout" is by no means unambiguous. The data I have is likely not able to definitely answer the question, but I think there is at least a little evidence for burnout.

...

As I have said, my speculation about burn-out is just that; the data do not have enough information to support it.

 

My poorly worded post was a suggestion that although interesting, total logs/day does not have enough fidelity to use to answer the question made in the OP. (logs/cacher and logs/cacher/day caching might provide more insight) It was observed that caching on non-weekend days in August was up and gross log totals were up (to be expected) and that gross logs in September were down more than the previous year. Although there was only two years of data shown in the Post #29 graph it indicates a trend of decreasing total logs in September already, so by logical extention there already pre-exist reasons for different and lower gross totals in September. As you state the data is ambiguous and the September decrease could be attribited to "burn out" but it just as easily could be attributed to other effects/changes in cacher availability (back to school), weather, inclination, travel distance, vacations, number of active cachers, number of caches, etc.

 

In the end, I agreed with you that the data does not have enough fideilty to support answering the question made in the OP.

 

In what universe do you live that logs per day is not a rate?

lol, you got me there! (I am normally in the rate of change/velocity/acceleration vs time paradigm)

 

It might also be useful for you to learn some basic information about statistics before attempting a statistical critique.

Lets keep the discussion about original question and the data; and not who posts what with what background knowledge.

[+fizzymagic]

Ok good! Sorry for my defensiveness in the last post. Actually, my original post in this thread was kind of a troll to see if people would opine globally without data. But they didn't. How about I start a new thread on the data and results? Then we can have a good discussion.

[+The Rat]

I have several friends whose caching dropped dramatically in September after doing caches every day in August. In fact, a couple of them qualified for a nearby challenge cache for which you have to log exactly one cache in a calendar month.

 

So what do you think? Did the rate of cache finds go down at the start of September because of the "31 days of caching" in August?

I can't say about August per se, but I just posted a couple of interesting graphs on the Google+ Geocaching Community that actually show an increase in geocaching activity from about 2011, but increasing through 2012 and probably 2013, although I don't have 2013 in the graph. This is true both for active cachers (whose numbers of finds increased) and for those who have not logged a find for 5 or 6 years, then started caching again around 2011. One observer speculated that smart phones and the plethora of apps for geocaching is responsible, and I think that's one likely explanation. Other possible explanations are marketing efforts or other innovations by Groundspeak, like the 31 days of caching thing or website changes. I haven't heard any explanations from dedicated cachers whose numbers went up, but I have talked to a few people who started caching again after years of dormancy, and they each had an unconnected explanation like they suddenly started dating a geocacher or they went on a vacation to an interesting place, etc.

Edited October 25, 2013 by The Rat