In this photo provided by Matt Stites via John Egan, John Egan poses with his laptop in Austin, Texas on Friday, February 21, 2014. Egan, 50, said he takes online quizzes partly because he's curious about himself and because he wonders how his answers will stack up against his friends' answers on Facebook. A recent veritable explosion of silly online personality quizzes, most of them created by the young social media mavens at Buzzfeed.com, has everybody talking about which state they really ought to be living in and which Harry Potter character they really are. (AP Photo/Matt Stites)
(AP)—A recent explosion of online personality quizzes has everybody talking about which state they really ought to be living in and which Harry Potter character they really are.
Most of the quizzes are created by the young social media mavens at Buzzfeed.com, which says the quizzes are smashing traffic records.
Experts say the phenomenon isn't surprising. They pin it on the age-old fascination with that central question—"Who AM I?"—and a desire to compare ourselves with others in a social media-obsessed society.
At Buzzfeed, a team of about 100 content creators has been producing one to five quizzes every day for two months. The most popular—"Which State Do You Actually Belong In?"—has generated about 41 million page views.
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