Well, in terms of when someone's "in" the fandom, I mean it's important to distinguish between when their interest in animal anthropomorphism first manifested, vs. when they found out about the fandom. I knew I liked anthros when I was about 11; but I didn't find out about the fandom until I was 19, and I didn't get the chance to activately participate until I was 20. I know one fellow who knew about the fandom for years, but he wasn't geographically near other fans, and could only manage long-distance communication. It was a relief when commercial Internet service providers came along. :)
I know what you mean about longitudinal studies. My father worked on one of those, studying high school students and what they thought their employment and life situations would be like a few years down the road. The problem was a combination of being unable to contact people, and that many of the ones they could contact, no longer wished to participate. So the data pool shrank very badly and made for an increasingly worse sample size. You'd need to start with as big a group as you can and get multiple means for future contact, even through other family members, if possible.
Well, in terms of when someone's "in" the fandom, I mean it's important to distinguish between when their interest in animal anthropomorphism first manifested, vs. when they found out about the fandom. I knew I liked anthros when I was about 11; but I didn't find out about the fandom until I was 19, and I didn't get the chance to activately participate until I was 20. I know one fellow who knew about the fandom for years, but he wasn't geographically near other fans, and could only manage long-distance communication. It was a relief when commercial Internet service providers came along. :)
I know what you mean about longitudinal studies. My father worked on one of those, studying high school students and what they thought their employment and life situations would be like a few years down the road. The problem was a combination of being unable to contact people, and that many of the ones they could contact, no longer wished to participate. So the data pool shrank very badly and made for an increasingly worse sample size. You'd need to start with as big a group as you can and get multiple means for future contact, even through other family members, if possible.