A new Dentyne commercial claims we spend 20,000 minutes kissing. What kind of estimator would I be if I didn't check their math? How many minutes does the average person spend kissing?Couples often kiss each other several times per day1. If we assume the average day consists of 30 seconds of kissing and the average persons spends 60 years in a relationship, then we can estimate the number of minutes spent kissing in a lifetime:
time kissing = (time kissing per day) · (days per year) · (years in relationships)
= (30 s per day) · (365 days per year) · (60 years in relationships)
= 11,000 minutes.
That’s an average of 11,000 minutes spent kissing in a lifetime. The commercial’s claim is well within what one might reasonably expect. Good job, Dentyne and “stub”.
If you assume that someone has a girlfriend/wife for about 35 years of their life, and that about 1/3 of that time is spent with that partner, then all that is left is to estimate the proportion of time kissing. This proportion of time probably decreases over time, but 0.5% may be a fair estimate.
ReplyDeleteThus:
((35*365*24*60)/3)*0.005=30,660
My estimate ended up slightly over, but I may have been slightly generous as I did no research.