![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
16% and 76%?
Oct. 21st, 2011 03:37 pmHere's a fun bit from the news today. In some kind of sidewalk survey (no, they didn't go into details about how they got these numbers), the news people report that:
1. 16% of smartphone users say they have run into someone while looking at their smartphone.
2. 76% of people walking in the street say someone looking at their smartphone has run into them.
Now, even assuming that the reports of something like 50% of the people having smartphones are correct, there's something funny about those numbers. Either the folks who are looking at their smartphones are running into a heck of a lot of people, or maybe they aren't remembering how often they bump people? Or maybe the people who are just walking have a different idea of what "run into" means?
Maybe some of each?
The reporter didn't even seem to notice that having a very small percentage run into a very large percentage seems inconsistent.
Is this what they mean by encounters of the smart phone kind?
1. 16% of smartphone users say they have run into someone while looking at their smartphone.
2. 76% of people walking in the street say someone looking at their smartphone has run into them.
Now, even assuming that the reports of something like 50% of the people having smartphones are correct, there's something funny about those numbers. Either the folks who are looking at their smartphones are running into a heck of a lot of people, or maybe they aren't remembering how often they bump people? Or maybe the people who are just walking have a different idea of what "run into" means?
Maybe some of each?
The reporter didn't even seem to notice that having a very small percentage run into a very large percentage seems inconsistent.
Is this what they mean by encounters of the smart phone kind?
