Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health • Hacker News Board

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#271

Post by stormbrew » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 6:18 AM UTC

hcrisp wrote: post #266

stormbrew wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a facebook poll, not sure why you thought that. It was a poll taken from a random (presumably population-reflecting) sample of Leger's online polling platform. It's not technically a random poll like wardialing in the 40s got you but it's not just an opt-in facebook poll either. https://leger360.com/surveys/legers-north-american-tracker-o...

Without access to the questions I don't know exactly who would have a tendency to respond. But would you answer a poll about how a service is affecting you if you didn't use it? And if not, that's my point -- that both the article's title and contents seem to speak for Canadians en masse but is likely not to, because it likely only sampled the 60% who use Facebook.

I really don't know why you'd assume people wouldn't tbh. Yes, I am (approximately, at least) a non-user of facebook and if I were being polled about it I would answer a question about my views on its effects on society.

Also, the most pertinent question to this discussion is in the post by the polling company I linked to above.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#272

Post by stormbrew » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 6:23 AM UTC

notafraudster wrote: post #269

stormbrew wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This disclaimer is applied to pretty much all polling done online, even if the samples are weighted to match the population. If you go look at election polls, for eg., the non-IVR ones will all have something like this, or a "If this were a traditional phone poll, the margin of error would be..." Online polls are usually done by letting people opt-in and then sorting and weighting to sample, just like phone polls. Th…

You replied like you were replying to me. I literally do this for a living. My original post speaks to all of this. Quota-based sampling -- a preferable term to convenience sampling -- (i.e. non-random samples that allow respondents to opt-in but with invitations to opt in extended to a large pool about whom basic information is gathered in advance, with invitations extended in a manner to quota on population weight…

Looking back at your post I definitely see better where you were coming from and I do think I was in error to respond to you, you're right. I was frustrated at a few different posts in this thread and maybe conflated some of what you were saying with what others were saying.

I think you are probably right about the poll as well; there's a more specific statement on leger's own release about the poll[1] about methodology and it does seem as if they just pulled people at random from their panel and does not mention weighting them. Which is surprising to me.

[1] https://leger360.com/surveys/legers-north-american-tracker-o...

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#273

Post by rightbyte » Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 11:27 AM UTC

zepto wrote: post #127

rightbyte wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switching brand of cigarettes doesn’t protect your lungs. Atleast get one with filters?

Filters make cigarettes mildly worse. https://www.quora.com/Is-smoking-unfiltered-cigarettes-signi...

I hate when my intuition on seemingly simple things is wrong ...