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Everybody Lies

Podcast  - Everybody Lies . . .

We are all Statisticians. “Yah right, everyone I've ever talked to hates statistics, and they hate math.” Don’t believe me?

Let me give you an everyday example: When you drive your car to work and approach a stoplight, pay attention next time to how you monitor traffic patterns and observe the sequence of the green, orange, and red lights.

Watch the light above you, to your right. The traffic running past you (perpendicular to you) has a green light, it changes to orange, then red. When the traffic stops, notice the slight delay before the traffic in front of you get’s the green arrow to turn left. During that 3 second delay, you can make your right turn and be safely ahead of the oncoming traffic turning left.

What’s going on here? You’re gathering data. Data that helps you decide whether to wait for your green light or make the right turn on a red light ahead of the oncoming traffic. In other words, you’re making an inference, “Drawing a conclusion from available evidence or data.” That’s statistics!

Why do this? Well, in California, anyway, we deal with a lot of impatient drivers. “I’m late, need to get to work. I can save a few precious seconds. Sitting at this stupid stoplight is a waste of time.”

I’m thinking you probably own a smartphone? According to Pew Research, “The vast majority of Americans – 96% – now own a cellphone of some kind. The share of Americans that own smartphones is now 81%, up from just 35% in Pew Research Center’s first survey of smartphone ownership conducted in 2011.”

When you have a question, need directions, or simply want to check your FaceBook status, your gathering data yet again to make a decision. How often do you do this? Not while you’re driving I hope.

If you have an iPhone try this; Go to Settings, then scroll down the list of apps until you find Battery, click on battery, then scroll down to see Battery Usage. This allows you to see what percentage of battery usage your phone is using for each app that you open. Oops, you're gathering data again. Watch out this is the math you hate.

How about getting directions? With your smartphone, you ask for directions in Google maps. While running in the background it’s recording your every move. Don’t believe me, try this; from your computer, go to google.com, search for Maps, click on Google Maps, click on the menu (top left corner), click on your places, then click on visit. This will show you all the locations you visited while using Google Maps. Yes, you can change your settings to stop this - but how many people do?

Even more fundamental is how data is gathered when you ask Google any question. What types of things do you ask in the privacy of your own home, with your smartphone, or your connected tablet? I can only speculate. However, all this data is being collected and used by social scientists to make an inference on health, political values, the economy, what news we're exposed to, and much more. 

Check out the book, 

Everybody Lies - Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Reveals About Who We Really Are. by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Every decision you make is based on some kind of data source. Growing up, it was sights, sounds, smells, and touch. Data that your mind gathered to allow you to make life decisions. Now technology allows scientists to gather data on everything we do or say based on the habits we develop using our smartphones.

What do you think about that Mr. or Ms. Statistician?

This is Patrick Ball, thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.

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Anonymous said…
We have red, yellow and green lights here in the U.S.
August 14, 2020 at 4:17 PM
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