Drunken Maps or Why the Netherlands is the World's Designated Driver

Given the results of our map of Alcohol, Caffeine and Tobacco (particularly Rachel Maddow's pithy "we're a nation of drunks!" comment) we thought it prudent to take a more ahem, sober look at the issue. So today's map is a comparison between the number of user generated placemarks referencing the terms "drunk" and "sober".

Of course the term for drunk varies with language and complicated by the fact that many terms are slangish, "Ich bin blau" (literally I am blue) in German. We don't really understand why blue=drunk either. Then again, why does blue=sad in English? In any case a closer look is clearly warranted.

The global maps seem at first glance to indicate that people are much more interested in documenting drunkenness than sobriety. Must be a lot of college students out there. But there are a number of intriguing patterns. Most interesting is that the European continent contains many more references to sober than drunk when compared to the U.S. which seems awash in a green sea of drunkenness. This is particularly interesting given that alcohol consumption is much more strictly regulated in the U.S. via high drinking ages and various blue laws (again with the blue references) restricting its sale.

World Map of Drunk and Sober

Zooming into the European level, one can see a fair amount of regional variation. The United Kingdom in particular contrasts fairly strongly with the rest of Western Europe. Western Europe itself has a fairly variegated pattern with certain areas such as the Netherlands and Belgium being particularly sober places. On the other hand, the U.K. is blanketed in references to drunk with nary a mention of sober. Given the make-up of the Anglo-American research team of Floatingsheep, this does not come as much of a surprise. But perhaps some further ethnographic participant observation in a range of pubs is warranted. Equally interesting is the steady increase in references to "drunk" (versus sober) as one moves eastward across Europe.

European Map of Drunk and Sober

But it is at the U.S. level that things are particularly compelling. As noted earlier, there are many more references to drunk than sober with a few intriguing exceptions. Most notable is a band of sobriety in Central Iowa (which incidentally seems to correspond to a lower number of bars). While Iowan farmers have always struck us as a particularly sober bunch, some of the other clusters such Southern California, Virginia Beach and Tampa-St Petersburg are a bit more surprising.

North American Map of Drunk and Sober

Given this variation we thought it worthwhile to compare the number of "sober" user generated placemarks to an independent measure of drunk related behavior. A quick search provided us with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on traffic fatalities related to drunk driving. Aggregating our point data up to the state level and normalizing each variable by population shows a statistically significant and negative relationship. See the graph below.

Sober References vs. Drunk Driving Fatalities, State Level

In short, the number of user generated placemarks referencing the word "sober" is negatively related to the number of traffic fatalities resulting from drunk drivers. Although there isn't a direct causal relationship between the two (after all, how would the creation of a placemark affect individual decisions about driving?), the existence of a correlation at all is a compelling example of how online and offline human activity can mirror each other.

For those who are interested, there is no correlation between our measure of bars per capita and drunk driving related fatalities. Nor does the number of bars seem to correlate to references to drunk or sober.

And because we know a lot of folk from Wisconsin (ground zero for bars in the U.S.) are likely to read this, Wisconsin ranks right in the middle of states in terms of references to sober or drunk within user generated placemarks as well as drunk driven related fatalities.

So, Rachel, we're not able to reject your characterization of the U.S. as a nation of drunks (at least with this data) but an international comparison to the U.K. does suggest we're a bit more sober than some others. It also suggests that the Netherlands might be the best candidate for the world's designated driver...now if we can just get the keys out of the hands of the usual suspects.