Group items tagged

What happens once misinformation is corrected? Is it effective at all? A major problem for social media platforms resides in the difficulty to reduce the spread of misinformation. In response, measures such as the labeling of false content and related articles have been created to correct users' perceptions and accuracy assessment. Although this may seem a clever initiative coming from social media platforms, helping users to understand which information can be trusted, restrictive measures also raise pivotal questions. What happens to those posts which are false, but do not display any tag flagging their untruthfulness? Will we be able to discern them?

Social media algorithms, artificial intelligence, and our own genetics are among the factors influencing us beyond our awareness. This raises an ancient question: do we have control over our own lives? This article is part of The Conversation's series on the science of free will.

In 1967, following riots in Detroit, Philip Meyer used survey research methods, powered by a computer, to show that college-educated people were just as likely to have rioted as high school drop outs. His story was one of the first examples of computer assisted reporting and precision journalism, in which journalists use social science methodologies to extract and tell stories. In recognition of his contribution to the area, each year's best computer-driven and precision stories are celebrated through the Philip Meyer Journalism Award. The Award's 2016 winners have just been announced, with the successful entries showcasing techniques derived from quantitative and qualitative methods, such as surveys using randomly-selected respondents, descriptive and inferential statistical analysis, social network analysis, content analysis, field experiments, and more.

Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

Nice discussion of the data around contraception choices. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president I started noticing an interesting trend on my social media newsfeeds. And no, I'm not talking about the near-constant bickering of people with differing political opinions. I started seeing post after post from friends publicly asking one another about their experiences with different forms of birth control. The motivation for these kinds of conversations centered around the pending rollback of copay-free contraception, but have since been re-kindled every time reproductive rights come up in the political arena. And it's not just talk. Many of these conversations centered around the use of long-term contraceptives like intra-uterine devices or IUDs which can protect against pregnancy for 3 - 12 years. In the months immediately following the 2016 election, AthenaHealth reported a 19% increase in IUD-related doctor's visits and Planned Parenthood reported a 900% increase in patients seeking IUDs. Cait, 27, recently switched to a copper IUD, and said that she made the switch due to convenience and "because now in light of our current administration I'd like to have something that will continue to work and be affordable even if I end up without health insurance."

Excellent NYT interactive - where do you draw the line on how your data is used by social media companies and smart devices?

When it comes to inequality, a growing body of evidence shows that people across countries underestimate the size of the gap between the rich and poor, including their wages. This can undermine support for policies to tackle inequality and even lead to apathy that consolidates the gap. But how exactly are existing perceptions of inequality measured by social scientists?

An introduction to a set of deep dive articles an important issue....When we tell people that we work at the intersection of statistics and human rights, the reaction is often surprise. Everyone knows that lawyers and journalists think about human rights problems … but statisticians? Yet, documenting and proving human rights abuses frequently involves the need for quantification. In the case of war crimes and genocide, guilt or innocence can hinge on questions of whether violence was systematic and widespread or one group was targeted at a differential rate compared to others. Similar issues can arise in assessing violations of civil, social, and economic rights. Sometimes the questions can be answered through simple tabulations, but often, more-complex methods of data collection and analysis are required.

Women continue to earn less than men, for a variety of reasons. Discrimination is one, research shows. Women are also likelier than men to work in lower-paying jobs like those in public service, caregiving and the nonprofit sector - and to take time off for children. Employers often base a starting salary on someone's previous one, so at each job, the gender pay gap continues, and it becomes seemingly impossible for women to catch up. Salary history bans are too new for researchers to have studied their effects extensively. But other research has found that people are overly influenced by an opening bid, something social scientists call anchoring bias. This means that if employers learn an applicant's previous salary and it's lower or higher than they were planning to offer, it's likely to influence their offer.

An excellent visual data story describing the gender pay gap (in America) and debunking the claim that there is no real difference in the amount men and women get paid. The pay gap varies depending on the occupation, working hours, education attainment, experience, and geography. That explains part of the difference in pay between men and women, but not all of it. And even though most economists agree that after adjusting for age, education, experience and other variables there's still an unexplained gap, there are voices who argue that the gender pay gap is a myth. Pay gap deniers purport that women's choices, rather than discrimination, cause the pay gap between women and men. But those choices are actually consequences of the social forces at play.

The proposal to drug test welfare recipients keeps on bouncing back. The most recent attempt, announced last week, is now the third proposal since 2017. But the tenacity with which the government is pursuing this agenda reflects, not necessarily a fixed policy position, but rather a moral stance. And this moral stance conflicts with that of the proposals' critics. Are we doomed to countless repeats of the same policy proposal? Or, as the Australian Social Policy Conference heard in Sydney this week, can we use philosophical arguments to help break the deadlock?

Lots of quantitative information in this video about the impact of sugar on health in the US. Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

John Oliver explores America's wage gap between men and women and proposes a possible solution. Note: Solution proposed is 100% sarcastic. Think about the arguments being made and how they shift - e.g. the claim that 4% is "basically no wage gap" as a way to indicate a gap isn't in fact a problem. Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social issue

Exhorted by President Trump, federal administrators and many Republican state officials are drafting rules requiring people to work in exchange for Medicaid, housing aid and food assistance. But what happens when the poor live where work is hard to find? In Michigan, the state's Senate has passed a proposal that would exempt Medicaid recipients from a work requirement partly on the basis of geography - if they live in a county where unemployment exceeds 8.5 percent. Michigan's approach, critics point out, would mean that poor, mostly white rural counties are exempted, but not the predominantly black, economically troubled cities of Detroit and Flint.

Some great quotes in this piece! The language of politics warps our democracy again and again, as in this tax calculation. The media must unpack statistics Last week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Health Foundation published a report on funding for health and social care. One figure from the report was repeated across the headlines. For the NHS to stay afloat, it would require "£2,000 in tax from every household". Shocking stuff!If you're sitting at a bar with a group of friends and Bill Gates walks in, the average wealth of everyone in the room makes you all millionaires. But if you try to buy the most expensive bottle of champagne in the place, your debit card will still be declined. The issue to be addressed, and one to which there is no fully correct answer, is how we can put numbers into a context that enables people to make informed choices. Big numbers are hard to conceptualise - most of us have no intuitive understanding of what £56bn even looks like.

Nice discussion on privacy, "How much do you value your privacy? Does it bother you what social media companies, governments know about you - your money, your body?"

Interesting article about how different kinds of data (like your social media data) can give insights into health, but don't have the same protections as health data

'It's important to me that I make my own decisions, but I often wonder how much they are actually influenced by cultural and societal norms, by advertising, the media and those around me. We all feel the need to fit in, but does this prevent us from making decisions for ourselves? In short, can I ever be a truly free thinker?' Richard, Yorkshire. While being the lone "captain of your soul" is a reassuring idea, the truth is rather more nuanced. The reality is that we are social beings driven by a profound need to fit in - and as a consequence, we are all hugely influenced by cultural norms.

Analysis of the day's news in an engaging & entertaining way. Host John Barron is joined by a panel of journalists, political & social commentators for a lively, thought-provoking discussion. #TheDrum This week includes discussion of vaccinations and the lock out laws - a great episode for aei