My guess - this experiment has nothing to do with the clicks, but rather is trying to measure something else. Something like the amount of time people take on breaks, plotted against the amount of time people spent reading the instructions. Or something like that.

It could, for example, be used to demonstrate that people are more willing to reveal some private information if you make them jump through a few hoops to gain this "privilege".

Interesting idea, but if this was the case I'm sure they wouldn't bother writing javascript which ajaxes timestapms of your clicks to their server.

Why not? Placebos also look like the real thing, don't they?

Anyhow, in cases like this it's always nice to save all the data you can get. The correlation you'd like to demonstrate might not exist at all. However, if there are many parameters, you might be able to find something else.

If you notice the red balls aren't random. I could always predict what the next ball was. It's always the one straight across.

Could be measuring how many people pick up on the pattern.

Wait--as opposed to a curve??

I'm sure they do, I took a very short break (1-2 seconds) early on, but realized I did better if I just stayed in the zone.

Does that thing just throw random numbers between 28 and 33 ? Looks like that if I read the comments :D .

Probably has more to do with the age of your average HN reader.

For me it also said 30 although I'm few years younger actually.

For a friend that's 29, it said he was 10.

It even says 33 for over 50 year old folks here

We need some volunteers to grab their kids and have them try it.

I'm 36, it says I'm 31. I feel like an atomic superman. Also my fingers hurt.

Not very close. Said 32. I'm 47. From the other comments, seems like a pretty narrow range of guesses.

I'm 35. It gave me 55 on my 1st attempt using the trackpad on my brand new laptop which I'm still getting used to (I turned on momentum yesterday and am not used to it yet). I then plugged in a mouse and got 30. The sensitivity on the mouse wasn't what I was used to, I felt hampered. I'll try it again at home on the machine + mouse set up I use when playing starcraft 2 and hope that I get at least a few years younger.

return 30 if referer == 'https://news.ycombinator.com/

Is it close?

Kinda shocked that at the end it didn't give a debriefing like most study tests do.

Age 29 the first with regular speed of clicks. Age 53 the second time taking lots of time between clicks and being more careful to click the center of the circle.

Said 40, I'm 21, really off!

Just put up a video on my youtube channel asking my subscribers to try this out. Looks like it does predict the 29-31 range much more then others. Anyway check out the comments over there for results of a much different demographic then here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K6bSVKao5I

It looks like it even transmits mouse move events on the canvas via ajax to the server. Too bad we don't know the calculations over there.

I used a Thinkpad tracking point which is extremely accurate and fast (Lenovo will hopefully not remove them from the next ThinkPad after the T431 :-( ), yet the page guessed I was 10.

It thought I was 2 years younger, so not bad. Gamers will probably get rated much younger than they really are.

Not even close - guessed 44 and I'm 25.

Thank god I'm not the only person that it guessed older.

I used a MS trackball (thumb operated) and it read me as 9 years younger than my actual age. I expected the trackball to be a significant handicap, but maybe it's not? It certainly felt like I was struggling to hit the targets, with plenty of overshoot.

I also used MS TBO but in my case it guessed few years too much. I'd say it's interesting if there was a single person here who didn't get answer between 25 and 35.

And TBO definitively is a handicap, try playing Quake with it if in doubt.

Despite being about 10 years off my actual age, I think this is pretty cool. I wonder if there's any other information they're taking apart from speed between clicks? Geo-location might help to narrow down the range of possible ages.

I wonder if the duration of a "quick break" is taken into account for their calculations?

Broken for me. The question page at the end didn't have a submit button (just oddly quoted: Preparing results..."), and when I submitted by pressing <enter> in an input box I got a "connection reset" error from Firefox.

And just when I finally get it to load and to my test:

    The following error was encountered:

    Connection to 140.247.61.57 Failed
    The system returned:

        (60) Connection timed out

I'm almost 35, it said 32. Close enough. I wonder if it just uses time to click or if there's something involving extraneous clicks or noticing the patterns. Interesting in any case.

It said I was 28, I'm 19.

Off by only 1 year for me.

BTW the site seems to be under high load, it timed out, and had to reload the results page quite a few times, but eventually I got the result.

It's probably a privacy test to see if they can get personal information out of test takers online simply by making you feel it's relevant to the test.

Is this just a clever way to collect survey data? Based on the guesses being in a pretty narrow range I suspect that's the real goal.

Not even close. Said I was 29 and I am 48.

I got only the "preparing results"... I think I took the site down! Now none of my three browsers can connect.

Not accurate for me. I'm 51 and it guessed 32. I'd be interested in what the key factors are.

It was off by a good decade for me.

That is amazing. It was spot on.

How old are you?

45

Hmmm. That's pretty cool it guessed correctly then.

Most of the numbers are around 30~ I don't think there is anything accurate about it.

Firefox: I am 10 years old Chrome: I am 30 years old IE: crashed in the end

It guessed that I was 33. Divide that in half and it would pretty spot on.

Says i'm 37, but really i'm 906. That's weird.

What country were you born in?

I'm gonna guess he put down Gallifrey.

Calls me 52. I'm 43. Using (badly) a touchpad.

I have terrible co-ordination.

31 ... I'm over 50. And I don't feel particularly dextrous.

Guessed 31. I'm 26. Crap. I must have awful motor skills.

Guessed 30 (I'm on regular mouse/desktop). I'm 38.

not even close, but now I do feel like bragging, so thanks for that ;) Actually the next position of the dot was pretty predictable in most cases.

>> Our best guess is that you are 10. Is it close?

Nope, I'm 28.

It said 33, I am 40.

It told me I was 33 also and I'm 25.

The survey at the end was fairly short. I wonder what factors they might be missing. I type most of the day in a terminal and rarely use my touchpad except for scrolling and occasional clicks on websites. I also don't play video games often. It seems like both of those facts could have affected my speed.

It said 29 and I don't turn 30 for a few more weeks.

I also got 29, but I'm 33. You click like a 33 year old! ;)

It thinks I'm 42.

I'm 21. Something must be wrong with me.

You/are are almost directly inverted in terms of age/score.

Not far off, but not amazing - 29 vs 33.

Got it right on the money. Spooky.

I'm 46, and it said 46. Uncanny.

It said 31. I'm 27. Who knows.

this has very deep and far reaching implications for pro-level starcraft players!!! :p

It said I'm 36. It guessed 30.

I click like a younger model.

Way off. Like, by half.

It got me within 4 years

Off by a year. Not bad.

Spot on for me too. Wow.

Said 29 for me, I'm 24.

I am 29 and it said 29.

30/30 here

I'm 30, it guessed 10.

I'm 33, also got 10.

said 31, I'm 41. yay?

Guessed 30, I am 28.

I got 39, I am 35

Bang on for me.

said 33, im 30.

right on the number for me. 33.

28 for 33