←back to thread

1293 points rmason | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
b_tterc_p ◴[] No.19323150[source]
> How the study was conducted: A total of 1,500 persons were interviewed to explore Americans’ use of digital platforms and new media. From January 3rd through February 4th, 2019, telephone interviews were conducted with respondents age 12 and older who were selected via Random Digit Dial (RDD) sampling through both landline phones and mobile phones. The survey was offered in both Spanish and English. Data was weighted to national 12+ U.S. population estimates.

I wouldn’t put much faith in this estimate. While facebook’s is probably an overestimate of people actually engaged in their platform, this survey doesn’t seem very useful to me.

replies(2): >>19323453 #>>19323615 #
ryana ◴[] No.19323453[source]
I am always sad to see responses like this. Statistics is a very well-defined mathematical discipline, and any good research firm will use weighting techniques to adjust for demographic-based likelihood of response. The results they get from this are very accurate.

If you have concerns about Edison's methodology or application of standard survey weighting then I think that could be a fruitful conversation. But implying that 1,500 responses can't be predictive for a country of 350 million is woefully misinformed.

replies(4): >>19323671 #>>19323869 #>>19324184 #>>19324400 #
1. dmurray ◴[] No.19324400[source]
Also, any methodology problems can be mitigated by the fact that they did the same survey with the same methodology in 2017, and compared their results. You expect to get better accuracy by asking people then and now "do you use Facebook?" than by asking them now "do you use Facebook, and did you use it two years ago?"