16% and 76%?

[mbarker]

Here'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?

Comments

[saruby.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it is only that the 16% are excessively clumsy and have run into people multiple times. If they only asked "Have you ever run into someone while using your smartphone?" the answer would be the same for the person who did it once and the person who did it a dozen times. Poor question formation. Also, a very unscientific survey, I imagine.

I want to note here that I have never run into someone while using my iPhone (ok, a couple of close calls, but we didn't actually collide).

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Most of these sidewalk surveys are not very careful, but the results are fun. Number of collisions would be a good extension. I suspect part of the problem is that the close calls and brushes which the iPhone user brushes off or forgets almost immediately may be considered more irritating by others. There's also a bit of self-reporting bias here -- I may not remember running into someone, especially since that means I made a mistake, but all those other people probably remember every incident. Anyway, funny numbers.

[dialyn.livejournal.com]

I just had a person with a smart phone step out in front of my car. It wasn't clumsiness on their part, but a complete absorption in their electronic leash and no consciousness of the fact that cars might actually drive in a busy street. It's sad when the phone is smarter than the person it controls. Fortunately I was not tethered to a smart phone, and was able to brake in time as this person stepped out between cars right in front of me, but I would have had little sympathy had the person struck my car because of their obliviousness.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the absorption factor is high. There was another part of this where they said something like 30 to 40 percent of the smartphone use now is twitter! I don't quite understand why someone HAS TO be reading and responding constantly, but I certainly see people doing it.

Maybe the next generation of smartphone will have "area awareness" so that the smartphone can warn you when you are about to step in front of a car? Or built-in "You are moving, please look away from the smartphone" warnings? Heck, our car's "car navigation system" refuses to let me do things while the car is in motion, why not add that to the smartphone systems? Wouldn't that upset the plugged-in users?

[dialyn.livejournal.com]

I'm a little alarmed that we now think we should have no responsibility for ourselves but want machines to do all the alerting. It seems like we are going in the wrong direction, somehow. And that direction is being decided by someone other than ourselves.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

You mean... look up and around, and actually take charge of our own lives? Yeah. It could work...