Online Survey Finds That People Are Online A Lot

from the don't-trust-50-percent-of-statistics-you-see dept

Wed, Sep 26th 2007 8:19pm — Dennis Yang

Last week, there was a much discussed story about the online study that reported that Americans choose to spend time on the Internet rather than having sex. The WSJ Numbers Guy makes an astute observation, that "people who answer online surveys aren't likely to be representative of Americans when it comes to online behavior." When he dug a bit deeper, he found that the survey was conducted with a panel of 1,011 online respondents, who responded to the survey during the week that it was open. Furthermore, the people surveyed were drawn from a pool of people that actually signed up to be surveyed. Obviously the results are skewed to users that actively use the Internet. When questioned, Ann Mack, JWT's director of trend spotting replied "The fact that the survey was conducted online may skew the results a bit." This just serves as a reminder to take studies or statistics that are presented to you with a grain of salt. In this case, the company that did the study was looking to create a new advertising category for people whose lives are so tied up with new technology -- so it's not surprising that the results that it found supported this categorization.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: online, studies

15 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

common_sense, 26 Sep 2007 @ 8:59pm

typical
haha... so typical of studies and surveys and polls. you can get whatever results you want by controlling and filtering the sampling base and then wording the questions to get a yes or no that fits your agenda.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2007 @ 9:37pm

Wait a min. I thought 72.348% of surveys (That number comes from a survey...) out there were to get exactly the response wanted. IMHO 100% of surveys are skewed. Who wants to go through the trouble of giving a survey and not get the desired results.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
slimcat (profile), 26 Sep 2007 @ 9:54pm

Say what?
So, um, online users who actively use the internet and sign up to take online surveys of online use aren't representative of online users? I guess the WSJ 'numbers guy' took more math than I did; I only made it through differential equations. WTF is this about again?

Like other online users I read many news/blog sites, watch videos, listen to music (Pandora), keep up with technology news, participate in discussions on many sites and keep in touch with friends. So, yes, I spend a lot of time online. That would lead me to say that people spend a lot of time online because they can do many things in one place, in front of their computer, that they used to do sitting at the writing desk (remember those? I do), by the radio (we did this in the '40's) or in front of the TV. Course, I'm a little shy of 63 years old so I guess I'm not representative of online users. Oh, my head! I'm going back to /. .
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- PhysicsGuy, 27 Sep 2007 @ 5:30am
  
  Re: Say what?
  then put your math book down, and go take a reading comprehension course. "people who answer online surveys aren't likely to be representative of *Americans* when it comes to online behavior." how exactly is a survey, in relation to internet usage, conducted with only people who use the internet representative of the whole group, which includes those who don't use the internet?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - slimcat (profile), 27 Sep 2007 @ 6:51am
    
    Re: Re: Say what?
    "people who answer online surveys aren't likely to be representative of *Americans* when it comes to online behavior."
    And the online behavior of people who don't use the internet is measured exactly how in an online survey?
    I'd mark you +5 Funny if I could.
    Oh, I put my math books down forty years ago. I think it's time you put down that Pickett slide rule.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - slimcat (profile), 27 Sep 2007 @ 8:56am
    
    Re: Re: Say what?
    "people who answer online surveys aren't likely to be representative of *Americans* when it comes to online behavior."
    And the online behavior of people who don't use the internet is measured exactly how in an online survey?
    I'd mod you +5 Funny if I could.
    Oh, I put my math books down forty years ago. I think it's time you put down that Pickett slide rule.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - slimcat (profile), 27 Sep 2007 @ 1:52pm
    
    Re: Re: Say what?
    "how exactly is a survey, in relation to internet usage, conducted with only people who use the internet representative of the whole group, which includes those who don't use the internet?"
    And what exactly would be the point of conducting a survey of online use of people who don't use the internet and how would you get them to reply? I'd mod you +5 Funny if I could. I'm sure you are referring, albeit obliquely, to the "people who use the Internet less (or not at all) have more sex" thing, but still.
    
    Oh, by the way, I put my math books down forty years ago. I think it's high time you put down that Pickett slide rule.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Neo Darklight, 28 Sep 2007 @ 5:37am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Say what?
      Oh, I'm sure you've been to one too many sites like Newgrounds or Roosterteeth.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Taylor Swift, 10 Jan 2010 @ 2:30pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Say what?
        NewGrounds is so awesome
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2007 @ 10:28pm

I never go online. Computers are evil and I refuse to use them!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2007 @ 12:12am

haha this has to be the worst survey i ever head of.

thats like calling ppl to see if they have a phone.

let m guess 100% of the ppl who did the survey go online?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased), 27 Sep 2007 @ 6:21am

New survey
A new survey came out that polled individuals after they made a purchase off of Amazon.com. Those who answered affirmed that they had made an online purchase in the last ten minutes. Therefore, Americans love to shop online. Asinine!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RandomThoughts, 27 Sep 2007 @ 9:59am

So would the survey be true for Techdirt readers?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2007 @ 12:33pm

negative fecal matter
In other news, 99/100 people who die in car accidents fail to respond to survey requests (the remaining 1% where successfully contacted by mediums).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jack, 29 Sep 2007 @ 10:46pm

Survey says...
"This just serves as a reminder to take studies or statistics that are presented to you with a grain of salt."

Perhaps "are meaningless" rather than "with a grain of salt"?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]