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Will Cellular Phones Skew Survey Results?
FriedEgg writes "Recently, many people have started to forgo traditional landline telephones in favor of cellular phones only. This presents a problem for telephone pollsters who are prohibited by the FCC from calling cell phones with automated equipment, and from calling people for whom receiving the call costs money. While they recognize the exclusion of cellular only users can skew their results, they're not yet sure how much... because they're unable to survey cellular only users to find out their demographic information. Some evidence does indicate the frequency of cellular-only is highest among 18-24 year olds, traditionally the hardest to survey anyway. If the problem grows worse, it's possible we could end up with a "Dewey Defeats Truman"-like situation where the telephone poll results were skewed because Truman supporters were less likely to own a telephone."
I would have to agree that such is the case. Land-line users are generally luddites/conservatives, while cell phone users are normally hip liberals.
I've been wondering whether or not I need a landline anymore. But now I know what to do. By god, I shall skew pollsters' results no longer! Mr. Phone Company Guy, activate this phone line!
No it's not-the existence of "foreigners" is a common liberal myth. The self-styled intellectual elite, attempting to push their own petty agendas on the rest of us, invented the idea of "foreigners" to lay a guilt trip on the rest of the country.
FACT: Nothing exists outside the US! There is only vast ocean, we occupy the entirety of Pangea. (The existence of multiple continents is yet another liberal myth, which we'll discuss next time).
FACT: Although the "foreigners" lie was created and popularized by liberals, it has recently been picked up by conservatives. The Bush administration relies heavily on scare tactics involving hostile "foreigners" as a way of grabbing unconstitutional levels of power.
FACT: You may meet people in daily life who claim to be "foreigners" and illegal "immigrants". These people are merely telling you that false story because they're trying to get out of paying taxes.
FACT: "Foreign" languages are simply elaborate codes used by spies to talk in secret. These spies are everywhere, and they are determined to steal your genes for use in horrible cloning experiments. Don't trust anyone who speaks a "foreign" language!
FACT: The word "foreign" comes from the combination of "for" and "reign". The word was invented for reign-for perpetuating the reign of dishonest liberals and unconstitutional governments. Don't let them fool you!
I am available for ALL telephone polls. Please call me. If you do not know the number please look for it in your local telephone directory. I do however have a small charge of $110 USD for each call that is made to my telephone that does not concern my personal or my family's day to day operations. These charges will be on your next telephone billing statement. Thank you and please continue to call me with any polling questions you have, I will gladly answer all of them. Per the DRM, all information provided by me, the sole content provider and author of MY digital information, all records will be kept and forwarded to the RIAA for billing purposes to your organization's accounts payable department. As the sole content provider, and since that information now travels down a digital telephone line, the DRM and the RIAA now protect me by law. have a nice day.
Not quite on topic but - The best way to deal with unwanted callers is to make a game of how long you can keep them on the line. Listen to enough of what they have to say to make them think you're interested and then say "hold on a moment - there is someone at the door..." and then go watch TV or something. If you want to try really hard to win the game come back every minute or so and say "sorry about this - hang on just another moment".
Sig is taking a break!
The only thing better than no polling data is unreliable poll results that nobody beleives. Then, we're all stuck having to make up our own minds rather than follow the bleating flock just to affirm the polls.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I concede your point also.
I'm a misogynist American Idiot who thinks he can program but can barely keep his website looking nice and would really like to date a Japanese Schoolgirl ( Ganguro Shojo Kawaii Desu. )
I will now crawl back into my whole and never post, ever again.
Atleast till the next article comes up.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Wow. This is the second article about my field in as many weeks. w00t!
The customers think it matters ... otherwise this business wouldn't exist.
Darned right. As long as people are willing to pay us to conduct surveys, we'll happily take their money.
And if you think those in the business are bad at maths, think of who the customers are. Politicians and the such. Notorious maths flunkies. Show them some fancy pie charts and percent signs, especially those in their favor, and they're your best friend forever.
While I can't argue with your assessment of the math skills of political types, if you think they're our main customers, you're mistaken. Many political polls are sponsored by media outlets, to generate easy stories to put on their front pages. Other political polls aren't paid for by anyone -- some polling firms will do them for nothing just to increase their name recognition among the public. If you're Canadian, and you can remember a polling firm called "The Angus Reid Group", this is something they did all the time.
There's much more money to be made in consumer research, where we contact people to get their opinions about many common products or services they use or purchase. And guess what? If we call you for one of these surveys, it's very likely that we got your phone number from the company that's paying for the survey, and they usually only provide residential numbers. Any telphone numbers you provide when you sign up for a service or buy a product are fair game here. So now you're thinking you'll just leave that warranty card's "home telephone number" field blank, and you won't get called, right? Sorry -- with your name and at least part of your home address, anyone can look up your home phone number (assuming you have a land line, and that it's listed).
Anyway ... I don't want to make my industry sound like telemarketing. First, we never sell anything. (Really. Unfortunately, there are many telemarketers who will pretend to be conducting a survey in order to get their foot in the door, so to speak, and after asking you a few questions, they'll hit you with a sales pitch. We hate this, because this is one of the reasons people are starting to sour on participating in surveys.) Second, we're much easier to get rid of. All you have to do is say "No!" if you don't want to participate when we call you for any specific survey. If the caller continues to badger you, chances are they're really a telemarketer trying to make quota. Finally, an interviewer from a reputable market research firm should be completely willing to tell you their company's name and contact information. (They might not be able to tell you the name of the sponsor of the survey only because you might answer the questions differently if you knew who commissioned the survey.) If the caller won't identify their employer, then again, they're probably a telemarketer.
If you're in the U.S. and you're at all curious about what market researchers are really up to, here's the consumer information page for the MRA (The Market Research Association) that many American market research and polling firms belong to:
http://www.mra-net.org/for_consumer/index.cfm
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