After writing my paper, I thought it would be fun to post about something interesting, rather than something serious (i.e. abortion, gun control, etc.). Thus, I started researching some fun facts with the use if statistics. As I was researching, I came across "52 cool stats and facts about social media". Although I don't think it is necessary to talk about all 52 facts, I would like to discuss my favorite three.
1. More than 350 million users suffer from Facebook Addiction Syndrome. I found this to be an incredibly interesting fact. After reading this, I decided to look futher into this syndrome because I was skeptical of it being a real disorder. Facebook Addiction Syndrome is in fact a real disorder and may be listed under Internet Abuse Disorder in the DSM V.
2. 60 percent of bloggers are between the ages of 25 and 44. I found this fact intersting because I would have guessed that the age was younger than 25. I would have liked to see the data for this conclusion, but I was unable to find it anywhere.
3. The average Facebook user has 130 friends. Although I think that this number is reasonable, I would have liked to see the sample size used to come to this conclusion. However, I am not too skeptical of this answer. I would have been more skeptical if the number was 50 or a number like 1,000.
Overall, I found this to be an interesting and fun read, something that I think we all need for the week of midterms. I would definitely recommend this to anyone.
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/52_cool_facts_and_stats_about_social_media_2012_ed_11846.aspx#
I further searched for research on one of the facts which stated, "One in five couples meet online; three in five gay couples meet online." The research was completed by a survey titled, "How Couples Meet and Stay Together" survey. The representative sample was the U.S. adult population nationwide with the sample size being 4,002 adults who responded to the survey. Before reading "Polling and the Public" (as well as our discussions in class), I would have thought this sample size was a bit too low to come to any good conclusions (but now I know better...). The subjects were chosen by the random digit dial phone surveying technique, but the survey was mostly taken online. I was happy to see that if some of these subjects did not have internet access, they were given internet access devices so they would still be able to complete the survey. This allowed for their survey to still remain completely random.
ReplyDelete71% of the subjects participated in the study, but other factors were not calculated. 32.6% of people first agreed to do the internet survey or the internet access device, and 56.8% completed the demographic survey. With these, the percentage turned out to be .326 X .568 X .71= 13% of respondents. I decided that although, once calculated, the respondent percentage was not as good as it could have been, the research also included follow-up surveys after one or two years to also describe the state in which relationships are in and for how long.
In the abstract for the survey results, it is also mentioned how this sort of research has not been usually conducted in recent years, even though the internet has been seen as a larger influence in connecting people with one another as potential mates rather than social ties.
Thank you for the facts, they were very fascinating!