We are now five days into 2017 and if you’re anything like us, you’ve already completely given up on your New Year’s resolutions like reading and exercising more. But many people actually take their New Year’s resolutions very seriously.
Yesterday, the official Twitter Indonesia account released a ranking of the top 10 New Year’s resolutions amongst Indonesian users of the social media site based on a keyword analysis of tweets coming from within the country. Here are the results:
Hmm .. turns out “getting married” is the resolution most widely made on Twitter in Indonesia. Is it because there are still so many singles in Indonesia?
The complete list:
- Get married
- Be healthier
- Work harder
- Become a better person
- Be happier
- Graduate from college
- Get a boyfriend/girlfriend
- Get a new job
- Stop smoking
- An Indonesia that is more tolerant
There are lots of great resolutions on here (10 is a fantastic wish but not really a resolution unless you’re resolving to somehow make Indonesia more tolerant) but it might surprise some people to see that “getting married” is at the top of the list.
But if you’re a young Indonesian it probably doesn’t surprise you at all. The pressure to get married in Indonesia is enormous (“Kapan kawin?” or “When are you getting married” being by far the top question asked of any young single Indonesians at a family gathering).
According to data from 2010, the average age at which men in Indonesia get married is 25.7 while for women it is 22.3 and the overall average is 24 (which is fairly close to the average of most Asian countries). By comparison, the average age of marriage in the US is 28.
Also for comparison, here’s a poll of Americans’ top New Year’s resolutions for this year. As you can see, many of the resolutions are the same as the Indonesian Twitter list, but neither getting married nor finding a romantic partner makes the list.
But to be fair, the US list comes from a general poll, whereas Twitter users in Indonesia would probably tend to skew younger.
But still, what do you think it says about Indonesian society when most young, tech-savvy Indonesians’ top goal for the year is to get married? Let us know what you think in the comments on our Facebook page.
