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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."
Haven't the Americans just got a 50 million list of folks who don't want to be called.
Do the folks who fit those two categories have a common demographic?
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
The 18-24 demographic is the one least likely to vote anyway
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.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Seriously, cry me a river. So, politicians won't know what to think. TV execs won't know what good shows to cancel next. Phone polling is the equivalent of jury duty and we know who is sitting on juries in this country. So next time a telemarketer calls, just tell them "I love chinks."
(before people get all politically upset do a little research, I can't help it that you don't watch Conan O'Brien or even have a sense of humour)
I don't want a dead battery or a faulty link station to block my call when someone is having a heart-attack, for instance.
The owls are not what they seem
...whose election was decided by just over 500 votes. That's what, a small high school?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I concede your point.
I guess I was being rather America-centric. I apologize.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I propose that we Always-Online types are often of radical political persuasions. And because our opinions are not reflected in the polls, the polls come out looking LESS radical, and more mainstream than America really is in reality.
And since one big factor in politics is The BandWagon Factor, our absence from political polls means that America is being deradicalized. Look for example at online polls. DO they have somewhat different results from telephone polls? You bet!
What can we Always-Onliners do about it? VOTE!!
See you at the polling place.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Much polling is done not for public consumption, but for private (read: corporate or political). I'd be willing to bet that the majority of polls conducted are never published. So who cares about the accuracy of polling? The organizations or political candidates who paid bigtime to have these done. Decisions that can be worth millions of dollars are based sometimes on polling data. Poll results are a form of business or political intelligence. Certainly in war time we all appreciate the value of intelligence. The stakes aren't as high in the polling biz, but that doesn't mean those stakes are zero.
I agree -- participating in a poll is annoying and time-consuming. And the news media perhaps do put too much emphasis on the horserace nature of political races, based on frequent polling results. But I believe that's market-driven. People want to see that polling data, so they publish it as often as they get it.
I _want_ the world to reflect my tastes. I want companies to introduce products that match what I want, I want my favourite TV programs to get more airtime, I want my political positions to be listened to and regarded as significant.
Opinion polls are an excellent way to do this. I've not been invited to participate in any number by phone but have several by e-mail or banner ads. Unless it's simply not possible for me to participate for some reason, I _will_ complete the poll. Yes, it's a small contribution but it's another point in their dataset and it corresponds to _me_ and helps drag data towards me just a little.
I won't participate in loyalty card schemes because I don't like the data density they're building up and don't think many shoppers appreciate quite how much data is being stored on exactly what they do and what can be done with it. Polls are rather different though - it's upgront about what's being gathered and due to the different nature of the data, has rather less nefarious possibilities for data mining. Net result I'm absolutely fine with giving them data to help swing towards me. After all, if I've got the chance to help steer the world towards what I want and I _can_ take it, why shouldn't I?
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Politicians can use polls to determine if their policies are viable, if they have popular support, and if they're too "out there", the politicians can either communicate those policies better, if they believe the problem is simple misunderstanding, or can ditch policies that have little or no popular support. This would be democracy in action.
Alternatively, politicians can use polls to determine if their policies are popular, if they have can get elected with them, and if they're too "out there", the politicians can either hide those policies better, or can ditch policies that have little or no popular support. This would be the same as what I just said, only worded from a more cynical standpoint.
In all fairness, opinion polls help move political parties towards general consensus. Without this kind of feedback, you might have to choose between extreme-left and extreme-right parties at election time. Rather than two extreme-not-what-you-actually-want parties.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This wouldn't be a problem if US mobile phone companies weren't so braindead in their charging plans, forcing people to pay for incoming calls. The US is essentially the only country in the world that does this, and it really doesn't make sense. Everywhere else, only outgoing calls cost money, and mobile phone companies are still very profitable.
*sigh* How is it that, with all their money, the US is stuck with a mobile phone system inferior to that of most third world countries? I live in Tanzania, and our mobile phone system is superior to the US' in reception, coverage, audio quality, interoperability, price, and convenience.
Cold calling is the one temp job I have always refused to do, on the grounds that the people who take those jobs are knowingly causing a great deal of annoyance, and quite frankly, they are as much shits as the company they work for. They deserve no sympathy whatsoever.
If you look over most Gallup polls, the average poll sample is usually 600-1200 people. That's less than 1/100th of 1% of the United States population.
How could it possibly be accurate? Short answer: It isn't remotely accurate. Gallup had Bush winning the 2000 election by as much as 7-10 percentage points. He lost the popular vote by 1-2%. That's a 8-11% inaccuracy, roughly. Not to spark debate by using this particular election for an example, but just referring to one most people would remember. Polls come out on a wide variety of subjects daily...some of which are commissioned by specific groups. You want a poll that says more people use Linux? Just buy it. You want one that says more people prefer death to ice cream? Buy it. If you can find 160,000 people who would buy Justin Gaurini's CD, you can be damn sure you can find a couple hundred who will say pretty much anything.
Then, release the poll to try and start some viral marketing. "More people love Linux? I gotta get in on this!"
Of course, if you read Gallup's disclaimers, they pretty musch say two things:
1. These polls are not really accurate.
2. Any poll can be skewed.
But, Gallup never explains what steps they take to prevent skewing, only that they are aware skewing can occur. Well, duh!
The trouble is, it seems like many of the polls I'm hit with don't really account for someone as weird as me.
For example, a couple months ago I got a call from someone doing a poll on consumer electronics and home automation. Great, I thought, that's right up my alley. Unfortunately, a lot of the questions were along the lines of, "Do you plan to purchase a computer capable of recording TV shows in the next six months?" The honest answer is, "Not unless one of the two I already own breaks." So I have to decide on the spot how I want to misrepresent myself: do I answer honestly and underrepresent my interest in such things, or lie and overrepresent my interest in purchasing such a thing? (I answered "no" to that one.)
Political polls aren't quite as bad in that regard, but they also usually fail to include reasonable options for someone with, say, a vehemently pro-personal-freedom point of view, so you're stuck with five or ten seconds to figure out which of the unsuitable multiple choices will skew the poll closest to what you'd like to see.
Now, obviously in most cases this is due to poor poll design, but in my experience most polls aren't all that well designed. So if I decide to switch off my landline at some point, I don't think I'll lose much sleep over pollsters' inability to get highly inaccurate poll results out of me.