Monday, May 11, 2015

Millennials who regard talking on the phone as a barbarism akin to the chamber pot

An interesting set of observations arising from the UK election at the end of last week, Pollsters Are Worse Than Ever by Megan McArdle.
I’ve seen few people asking what seems like the more pertinent question: What if polls can’t be fixed?

The second half of the 20th century was the golden age of survey data. But toward the end of the century, changing technology began to threaten the accuracy of polls. We now have caller ID, voicemail, and millennials who regard talking on the phone as a barbarism akin to the chamber pot. The modern American workday also compresses housekeeping and socializing into a few narrow hours, during which people are less likely to humor an unsolicited caller. In part because we've also seen the proliferation of robocalls in the survey industry and beyond.

Pollsters say that by carefully calibrating for the missing responders, they can still get accurate results. But what if it’s getting too hard?

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