…and this is a 
Some days, I think other people must be aliens. Or I must be. For instance, there's a lot of noise right now about this article analyzing the future of information and media that, if you read the comments, you will discover that people are praising to an astonishing degree. I looked at it and saw this graph:
And my bullshit detector went insane. It's supposed to be saying something about where people are and will be getting their information, but there's no information about where this information came from, and it's meaningless!
Way back in high school, I had this excellent chemistry teacher, Mr Thompson, who taught me the only worthwhile stuff I got out of my science classes in those years. He was really big on thinking — I know, a real radical — and he didn't have us simply plug-and-chug through basic chemistry problems, he forced us to work out why we were doing what we were doing. For instance, he did simple things like make us put away our slide rules (that's how long ago this was) and pencils and think through a problem, getting a ballpark estimate in our heads for the magnitude of the answer, and then we'd work through the details of the solution. (Come to think of it, using slide rules was a real advantage for this kind of reasoning.) We were always doing back-of-the-envelope estimates for problems he'd throw at us.
The other thing he did was introduce us to unit analysis. If we thought we had a way to figure out the answer, forget the numbers for a minute, just work through the units and see that it actually makes sense. If you're trying to figure out grams/liter of a solution you're making, and when you work out the units and discover it's coming out liters/mole, you know you're doing it wrong.
Simple, basic stuff. You ought to have absorbed this into your bones in grade school if you want to be a scientist.
So look at that graph. The X axis is years, which is OK, even if the inconsistency of the intervals is extremely annoying. But what are the units of the Y axis? What's being measured? I have no idea. I presume it's a stacked percentage of something, but that's unclear. Information produced? Absorbed? Thrown at a wall and forgotten? What kind of information? It's all lumped together and unspecified. Could we have some units, please? And can you really categorize a single unit of information that applies appropriately to what comes from a newspaper and what comes from a social networking site?
The other data we're missing is a source and methodology. If it's saying that someone in 2009 is getting 10% of their "information", nebulous as that means in this context, from blogs, how was that determined, and where are the raw data that was used to compile this chart?
Surprise — there isn't any. This whole chart was built out of some guy's impressions. There are no numbers and no sources and no measurements were made. It puts up a colorful pretense of being quantitative, but there's nothing but vapor and handwaving there. Mr Thompson would have been horrified.
And then this imaginary data is used to extrapolate imaginary trends into an imaginary future and make unbelievable predictions, which everybody seems to believe. I really don't get it. If a student put this kind of garbage on my desk, I'd at least draw big red X's across the pages and slap an "F" on it; I'd be tempted to set it on fire, throw it in my trash can, and piss on it. You cannot build plausible predictions from garbage data.
So, I must be an alien, because no one else seems to be expressing visceral disgust at this kind of nonsense, except for Larry Moran, who probably is also an alien. I'll have to see how many extraterrestrials are lurking in my comments section now.
The graph has been much improved.
Comments
Posted by: Carlie | May 27, 2009 6:14 PM
And of course, the other infuriating thing about graphs like these is that pictures seem to have a life of their own. Someone will see it and assume that there is data behind it, and reproduce it, and so on, and all the way people will become more convinced that it says something real because no one will go back to the source and check. Grrr.
Posted by: Sastra
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May 27, 2009 6:18 PM
What pretty colors the earthlings have!
Posted by: Gruesome Rob | May 27, 2009 6:20 PM
This got me in trouble on a test once.
I could never remember the enzyme kinetic equations, so I always derived them. Lo and behold, it was on the biochem test. I did my usual, and derived the equations and plugged the numbers in. Got the question totally wrong. The $@#*(& question had the wrong units, so I derived the wrong equations. Showed him what I did and why, and I ended up getting partial credit at least.
Posted by: NFPendleton | May 27, 2009 6:22 PM
The word "information" is now being abused like the word "energy" - bent by a bunch of husksters and snake oil shillers to mean something it doesn't really mean. Arch abusers like New Agers and AIG come quickly to mind...
Posted by: Blake Stacey | May 27, 2009 6:22 PM
Somebody with more Photoshop patience than I should make a new version of that graph with the labels changed to "Lies", "Damn Lies", "Folklore", "Random Bullshit", "Drunk Men in Pubs", etc.
Posted by: LtStorm
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May 27, 2009 6:22 PM
"Gaming"? What? Does he mean like, discussing things over voice chat during a game?
Posted by: Paulos | May 27, 2009 6:23 PM
One of the future places it says people will get their information is gaming. Gaming??? How the heck are you going to get news from Gaming?
And if we are going to get our news from Gaming, shouldn't it be happening now with all the MMORPGs currently?
The whole chart is nonsense.
Posted by: bonze | May 27, 2009 6:31 PM
Ah, PZ, where do you get the patience?
The article informs us that "information overload" became a problem in... 2004. I guess that's why Theodore Sturgeon wrote his short story of tragic information overload, "And Now The News" in... December 1956.
Posted by: SquidBrandon
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May 27, 2009 6:31 PM
I can say that data density index for this graph is pretty close to zero. So much non-data ink it's painful. This is little more than art and would actually serve as a great example of what NOT to do when presenting data in graphical form.
Not that I have been reading a lot of Tufte lately or anything like that...
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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May 27, 2009 6:31 PM
Social networks didn't exist before 2006? I find that hard to believe. Radio will die out in 2015? How and why?
Posted by: IST | May 27, 2009 6:32 PM
I may be an alien, if that's the criteria for determining this... I make my poor students derive units and actually label the axes of the graphs. Failing to keep a set interval or mis-scaling to demonstrate effect where there was none are also taboo in my courses... some of those poor kids have a hard enough time with numbers without someone fudging them, much less flat-out inventing data.
Posted by: Buford | May 27, 2009 6:33 PM
It's nice to see that my experience in American public schools wasn't unique. Mr. Cowles taught similar things just one town to the south of Mr. Thompson at about the same time.
Posted by: Chayanov | May 27, 2009 6:33 PM
Ummm okay. What does that even mean? "Information" will be beamed directly into my brain constantly? Is that what "Targeted" means?
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | May 27, 2009 6:37 PM
What about bathroom walls? Great source of information since Roman Times.
BTW, greetings from planet Zelaznick.
prepare to time out submission in 3...2...1...
Posted by: EJ | May 27, 2009 6:38 PM
Personally, I get most of my information from the light gray thing above "Targeted." It's brand new this year. I'd tell you what it is but it's still in private beta and I'm not allowed to. It's gonna be big though.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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May 27, 2009 6:38 PM
The worst part is, some influential business executives will make business decisions based on this article as if it really means something.
Posted by: EJ | May 27, 2009 6:44 PM
People received information from television between 1900 and 1920? Philo Farnsworth would like a word with Mr. Baekdal.
Also, books? Any information content in books?
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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May 27, 2009 6:44 PM
How sad. I guess 1998 was the last year that teenage girls spent inordinate amounts of time socializing at the mall. That was a huge part of my teen years. Not that I ever worked up the nerve to talk to them.
Posted by: cyan | May 27, 2009 6:46 PM
Using the ways that science is communicated to try to lend the validity of science to non-scientific ideas: this is what creationists/IDists attempt to do with words, and now here is an example of another person with a non-scientific idea trying to use a graph to convince people that their idea is scientific.
Who was it who first said that the sincerest form of flattery is emulation? Well, emulate more thoroughly until it actually is science. And if it doesn't, then quietly go away until you can actually produce something effective in the real world.
Posted by: Becca Stareyes
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May 27, 2009 6:46 PM
I'd assume it's some kind of advertisement thing. The gaming thing makes sense -- I mean, I used to hang out on GaiaOnline* and the site would essentially give you little pixel clothing for your little pixel avatar if you watched movie or game trailers. So I could believe that things like MMORPGs and Flash-game sites would be willing to sell ad space in creative ways that can't be blocked by Firefox.
* Think giant forums and flash games, plus a simple MMORPG, geared towards the anime-loving crowd. Plus tentacle gloves in the site store that I saw PZ post about a year or two ago.
But without numbers and some way to verify thing it's essentially just writing down 'my opinion' in pretty colors. Which is a nice thing for showing your opinion, but not terribly meaningful without facts to back it up. Opinions are like assholes, etc.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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May 27, 2009 6:50 PM
From myself at #5:
In other words, somebody needs to do a better job than I just did.
Posted by: Alan Henness (zeno) | May 27, 2009 6:50 PM
Yes, but the colours on the chart are very, very nice...
Anyway, there are some stripes that aren't labelled. I wonder what they are?
Posted by: Fred the Hun
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May 27, 2009 6:50 PM
Information?
Here's some... We now have green glow in the dark monkeys that can pass on their green genes. Actually they are kinda cute
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090527/sc_nm/us_monkeys_green
Posted by: Alverant | May 27, 2009 6:50 PM
Two grey areas are unlabled. We should already be spending money on the first unknown. And what do they mean by "gaming"? Do they mean billboards in Wrigley Field or a sneakers add in an MMORPG? (He did have a linear timeline at the end of the post. But that doesn't counter your other arguments.)
Posted by: lose_the_woo
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May 27, 2009 6:53 PM
At risk of being flamed, perhaps: % engagement/information source?
In other words, when interacting with ambient information, the y-axis shows the percentage relationships vertically.
That metric to me however, seems complex. How is it measured? Certainly the amount of ambient information today is much greater than 100 years ago. Back then it was probably who's sick and who's horse just gave birth. So there would need to be some kind of normalization between the very lumpy information to the very granular. Furthermore, define ambient information. I think it could mean the general, casual information that occurs in society day to day. But still, how is it quantifiable? Just what separates casual information from the non-casual?
Ok. Still more questions than answers.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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May 27, 2009 6:54 PM
He redid the "graph" at the bottom as an "update." It's still meaningless, which leaves me wondering what he really intends with it.
At first I simply assumed that he meant for it to be as impressionistic as his "article," yet he seems to think it means something.
The sad thing is that what he is lamenting is exactly the kind of blog-nonsense that heh wrote, and it seems that many don't get it. The thing is junk "writing," only vaguely tied to some real trends in how people get their "information."
The whole matter is not an unimportant issue, of course, but he shed no actual light on what's going on.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: MadScientist
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May 27, 2009 6:54 PM
The graph looks like puke - which is what I would do if I weren't accustomed to such nonsense. It is certainly nothing unusual; the daily press and many books are filled with such meaningless images. Many people look at graphs and don't even try to interpret them; I think that is why so many meaningless ones seem to be accepted by the general public. Then again maybe I'm an alien too and just don't know it. I'm one of the few people who walks up to posters at conferences and asks hordes of questions about graphs.
Posted by: Carlie | May 27, 2009 6:57 PM
Blake Stacey:
Hahaha - lolcats.
You forgot "Jon Stewart".
Posted by: tmaxPA | May 27, 2009 6:57 PM
I share PZ's distaste for 'futurists'. And as far as I can tell, all the author is spewing is garden-variety conventional wisdom. Still, to be honest, there is a comprehensible and useful point to what he's saying, and the visual encapsulates his hypothesis well, if not any actual data. To be honest, I was about to dump all over this "in the next five to ten years" pablum, until I saw the comments here about the 'gaming' category he uses. Yes, it would seem he's talking about voice chat, mmorpgs, and probably "spaces" like second life; anywhere you've got an avatar. And some people get some of their "information" there.
So I think his general point about 'rapid development of technology rapidly changes how people get knowledge of the world' represents a very common experience, which is why the article has gained so much attention. His analysis of the trends are actually pretty good, and as I mentioned before, the graph represents them pretty well. For those too hung up on "where's the data?", I suggest thinking of the 'units' in terms of the percentage of their information (whatever it is) that a typical person gets, rather than amounts of information. Obviously, there aren't any true metrics behind it, but his approximations seem uncontroversial.
After that, it all falls apart. As soon as he gets to the 'future' stuff, he's just babbling. But that's what his audience is hungry for. As a sales pitch for "I understand this stuff better than you do, so pay me money," it is practically a work of art. As a bit of fluff marketing philosophy ("Are you making yourself a natural part of people's stream of information? ") it is effective.
As logical discussion about rational subjects it is incomprehensible gibberish.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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May 27, 2009 7:00 PM
Maybe I should hold a contest for the best labels for the empty spaces. . . .
Posted by: Dr. Pablito | May 27, 2009 7:00 PM
Physicists love nothing more than a simple graph with black points on a white background, in which all the little black points march in a line. If you have found a way to investigate the real world that gives you that kind of graph, you've really done something. Anything you have to BS your way through using colors and pie charts -- it's crap. And there is an actual physical thing called information, but that's not what this graphic is talking about. I can't figure out that graph at all.
Posted by: Newfie | May 27, 2009 7:06 PM
When do we get a neural plug in the back of the head? .. Like Neo, in The Matrix.. I wanna learn Kung Fu.
Posted by: Carlie | May 27, 2009 7:08 PM
Maybe I should hold a contest for the best labels for the empty spaces. . . .
If it were xkcd, one of the spaces would be "your mom".
Posted by: wjts | May 27, 2009 7:08 PM
What a bunch of ahistorical bullshit.
In the 1800, the only way you could really interact with other people was to go out and meet them. It was all about face-to-face communication. If you wanted to sell a product, you would go to the local marketplace, where you would setup a stand. But this also meant that the only way for you to get information - or to give information back - was to be at the right place at the right time.
Because back in those long-lost times of the early 19th century, writing had not yet been invented. If only it had, "information" could have been compiled into collections (for argument's sake, let's call these collections "books") which, although time-consuming to make and to read, would have provided those poor 19th century simpletons with some small amount of knowledge of the world beyond "the local marketplace," where all trade occurred. (It is also lamentable that our poor benighted ancestors had not yet invented buildings, which might have moved some of this commerce from a marketplace full of stalls to "stores" or "shops," but such things were unknown in 1800.) Moreover, the written word had existed in 1800, the simple folk who lived 209 years ago could have used it to send short missives, less detailed than a "book," which we might call "letters," to one another that could have detailed their activities and conveyed news from far off-realms such as the other side of the city. But...
You didn't really know what happened in another part of the city, nor could you sell your products to people in another place.
Imaging if you will one of our medieval peasant/Gravettian ancestors of 1800 standing on the squalid pile of mud and mastodon bones that constituted the hovel/cave of London's primitive docklands. Turning to a companion, our illiterate, hunchbacked forebearer pauses briefly from shoveling dung into his mouth to remark that there seem to be an awful lot of ships coming and going. The reason for this phenomenon, however, seems obscure - although the ships appear to be laden with goods, they cannot be involved in trade because even the spectacularly stupid members of the Badger Clan know that it's impossible to sell products to people in another place.
The troglodyte then takes a thoughtful bite of his dung and resumes his frantic attempts to invent fire before the T. rex returns.
Posted by: Brandon | May 27, 2009 7:09 PM
Wow! I just noticed the horrible scale. The one axis that is labeled at all is labeled poorly. I like how 1998-2000 is given just as much space as 1800-1850.
It is pretty, though.
Posted by: BJ | May 27, 2009 7:10 PM
I want to show this to Edward Tufte, just to see his head explode.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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May 27, 2009 7:12 PM
The purple area next to "targeted" is "overheard cellphone conversations."
Posted by: Ferrous Patella
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May 27, 2009 7:12 PM
I think I must be in the alien camp. It was me last month that wanted to see the math for the "There probably is no God." statement.
Posted by: Tyche
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May 27, 2009 7:14 PM
Social news? I'm not sure I know what that is, either.
If you want to really perplex people with unit analysis, try it on a group of MBA students. I'm an engineer working my way through the MBA curriculum, and I usually derive the answers to economics equations from the calculus. Talk about a "dog tilting their head because they're trying to understand you" moment.
Posted by: H.H. | May 27, 2009 7:15 PM
Wow, talk about fuzzy thinking. One commenter there asked "Where's the place for search engines in your chart?"
Baekdal replied: The search engine of the future is, in my opinion, not that relevant. Instead you find new website via the social bookmarking sites, or via people personal streams.
I can already see this affect here on baekdal.com. 94% of all my referrer traffic comes from social bookmarking tools. Google only accounts for about 1%. This a dramatic change in user behavior in only 5 years.
In 2004, about 60% of my traffic came from Google, 25% from other blogs and the rest from varies sites around the world.
But what data did he use beside his own website before recognizing this "trend?" None that I can tell. Despite the fact that he says he "can already see this affect" on his website, his blog is the sole website on which he's basing this trend in the first place. But what if his website is unique in this respect? He wouldn't know.
Posted by: lose_the_woo
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May 27, 2009 7:16 PM
That's easy. 0 evidence in support of the idea. No math. There's nothing to calculate. It's the exact same math used to calculate the existence of unicorns and leprechauns.
Posted by: Sastra
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May 27, 2009 7:18 PM
Blake Stacey #30 wrote:
Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken.
Posted by: debaser71 | May 27, 2009 7:21 PM
To me, that "graph" is two things at once. 1) meaningless nonsense and 2) a drawing of what the author is writing about. In the second context, I dunno, the graph makes just fine sense. As far as the content goes, I didn't read the details.
Posted by: Fred the Hun
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May 27, 2009 7:22 PM
Information?
Shell announces new nitrogen-enhanced gasoline! PURE BS!
Aaaand... We now have green glow in the dark monkeys that can pass on their green genes. Actually they are kinda cute
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090527/sc_nm/us_monkeys_green
My brain just received and processed visual information, I saw a cat outside my window...it was black and I'm broadcasting this around the world on PZ's blog, which according to the graph is obsolete.
Who cares.
I think I'll go find some mushrooms, sheesh!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | May 27, 2009 7:22 PM
OK, OK, I admit it. I am the directing pansperminator.
(And unlabeled axes are a mortal sin.)
Posted by: tsig | May 27, 2009 7:25 PM
Yes units are important. One of the prime characteristics of woos is to start with a number, manipulate it and then add the units. ten psi is a bit different than ten feet per second.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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May 27, 2009 7:25 PM
This particularly struck me:
Gee, thinkers believe that Gutenberg's printing press meant something. Has he perhaps heard of, you know, books?
True, he's often talking about "meeting people," but then he writes as if meeting people and getting information are the same things.
While it's a fact that newspapers and other organs providing immediate information have been transformative (he's an idiot, btw, if he doesn't understand the importance of pamphlets, books, and newspapers in causing and sustaining the American Revolution--prior to 1800), often we turn to books for the most important information--and to the schools which use these books. Euclid's and Archimede's information mattered a whole lot more to "progress" than did stories of the latest wars and massacres.
No, the fact is that he hasn't the slightest clue regarding his subject. Apparently he only knows what some peopl "say" about information, and so he only discusses the most superficial kinds of that information.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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May 27, 2009 7:26 PM
The unlabeled axis is "megaparsecs per nanoliter"
Posted by: Scott | May 27, 2009 7:28 PM
So "Local Marketplace" died out around 2000? People don't talk in public anymore?
I saw a neighbor in the grocery store a few weeks back and asked him how he was enjoying the weather. He couldn't understand me, so I had to text him to get an answer. Crazy world we live in, now that people don't talk in public anymore.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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May 27, 2009 7:30 PM
H. H. (#40):
Based on a Thoroughly Scientific Sample (TM) — that is, the traffic to my website over the last hour — I can confidently conclude that all Internet traffic comes from Pharyngula.
Posted by: Johnny | May 27, 2009 7:31 PM
In much the same way that a chicken wing is really just a vehicle for the yummy hot sauce, this article is really just a vehicle for some guy to use a lot of goofy buzzwords.
I do believe he's mistaken "information" for "advertising".
If he's really talking about sharing "information", you'd think he'd find a spot for books.
Posted by: zzyxes | May 27, 2009 7:31 PM
In the comments section of that site I wrote:
Before reading this article, I had no idea that people were already getting their information from television before 1910. WOW! The things you learn on the internet!
Diego wrote: "Man! This article is sooo full of BS!"
That would be because the author pulled his data out of his ass.
Posted by: mk | May 27, 2009 7:32 PM
"Blorkensnorf! Nanoo-nanoo!"
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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May 27, 2009 7:37 PM
To him, at least, getting rid of standards is important:
When I first scanned the post (before I wrote #26), I didn't realize that he considers this to be a good thing. The IDiots sure do.
I do not think that getting rid of stasis and control are bad for all forms of information, of course. The web has done much to actually improve fact-checking and correction. But we'll always need information ("knowledge") that comes from the distillation of good testing and evaluation. You know, what often is found in books (along with much idiotic trash).
As far as I can tell, he'd as soon be rid of all expert knowledge as the average creationist is.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: Aquaria | May 27, 2009 7:37 PM
I think one of the unmarked bands needs to be labeled "Bacon."
Just because.
Posted by: Pygmy Loris | May 27, 2009 7:40 PM
Does anyone know what planet I'm from? Apparently I'm an alien and I would like to go home now.
Seriously, why the goofy "scale" for the x-axis? He didn't even use any data? Not even a poll or survey or something? Asking my grandfather, father and brother would be more useful than this crap.
wjts, that was awesome :)
Posted by: kenmeer livermaile | May 27, 2009 7:45 PM
"And of course, the other infuriating thing about graphs like these is that pictures seem to have a life of their own. Someone will see it and assume that there is data behind it, and reproduce it, and so on, and all the way people will become more convinced that it says something real because no one will go back to the source and check. Grrr."
But that is part of the point the graph itself is making, wittingly or not, yes? I am all for hewing to the principles of logic, but also for remembering that we logicians are based in great part on irrational impulses. This is doubly so in someone's projection of from what sources we will futurely pull "information".
Posted by: truthspeaker
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May 27, 2009 7:46 PM
I did a similar analysis based on traffic to my website, and based on that I have concluded that my mom is the only person in the world who exists.
Posted by: mad the swine | May 27, 2009 7:46 PM
I'd just like to emphasize (again) how utterly ridiculous and historically illiterate this passage is.
Hmm. What does ten seconds on Wikipedia tell me?
"In Ancient Rome, Acta Diurna, or government announcement bulletins, were made public by Julius Caesar. They were carved on stone or metal and posted in public places."
"Johann Carolus' Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, published in 1605 in Strassburg, is often recognized as the first newspaper."
"In 1704, the governor [of Boston] allowed The Boston News-Letter to be published and it became the first continuously published newspaper in the colonies. Soon after, weekly papers began publishing in New York and Philadelphia."
Not even to mention the enormous impact printed handbills had in, for example, the events leading up to the American Revolution.
Not even to mention, you know, *books*.
Posted by: RamblinDude | May 27, 2009 7:47 PM
And also “quantum” and “evolution” and “subatomic.” Scientists do all the hard work and lazy quacks come along and turn it into something stupid and New Agey.
I notice they only vaguely imply the Great Singularity, and there’s no mention at all of the inevitable robot uprising that will destroy humanity by 2025. Shoddy work.
Posted by: mad the swine | May 27, 2009 7:50 PM
Okay, I don't have time to deconstruct this further, but this:
says much more about the author's own bias than it does about any historical (or other) reality; the claim that imformation transmitted through face-to-face communication is somehow more real, or more valid, than information transmitted through printed text is simply ridiculous. Of course it's not 'really the same' - that doesn't make it inferior, no matter what Socrates says :P
Posted by: kenmeer livermaile | May 27, 2009 7:54 PM
"One of the future places it says people will get their information is gaming. Gaming??? How the heck are you going to get news from Gaming?"
What do you think an open classroom is? What do you think collaborative research is? It is a gropo of people interacting toward some goal, set of goals, hierarchy of goals, some the collaboration being for mutual benefit, some of it being of a more competitive zero sum nature.
Gaming as we know it today is just the preeminent market vector enticing people to use various proto-forms of virtual reality.
But it is not just the technology. Gaming brings out new (and/or very old) forms of interaction. Solo/group hunt/survive forms reemerge in gaming. The aspect of *play*, of mystical ennoblement, that such activities brought out inn us back in the day, emerge again.
In time, the dressings of role-play gaming may well adorn serious work and research.
The need to maintain strict epistemological protocol is not antithetical to pursuing research and pedagogic goals in a playful, fantastic, 'unreal' format.
Is there 8anything* on the planet less realistic than your average molecular chemistry textbook?
Posted by: kenmeer livermaile | May 27, 2009 8:01 PM
'a gropo of people'
Maybe that is, like, one of those virtual daisy chains for online swingers?
Posted by: SomeGuy | May 27, 2009 8:04 PM
So I guess NPR is being consigned to the dustbin of history by fiat then?
Good luck with that.
Maybe the hope of the author is that if you say (and print) this sort of thing enough, it takes on the air of truth. Fox and CNN have made a business of that sort of behaviour.
Yuck.
Posted by: deang | May 27, 2009 8:04 PM
People have been using the word "information" in that almost supernatural way since the 90s. The word "technology" is often used in the same fuzzy, all-powerful way. Quite annoying.
Posted by: eddie
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May 27, 2009 8:17 PM
That graph is totally inacurate. There's no band labeled 'making shit up'.
And what about the 31% of people that get their info in the form of interpretive dance?
Posted by: xebecs | May 27, 2009 8:20 PM
Not an alien, no. But my guardian angel made some good points that cause me to be very skeptical about that article.
Posted by: Geoffrey of Ballard | May 27, 2009 8:21 PM
Straight out of Monty Python: "and this bar represents 43% of the population!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZArgEvK2R1s
Posted by: Braiden | May 27, 2009 8:23 PM
What the hell is "social news?"
Posted by: ihateaphids | May 27, 2009 8:32 PM
This is ridiculous, if only for the reason that the data sources are not independent. If I read the NY Times website, I equate that with reading the paper. same goes for reading websites run by TV news agents (i.e. I tend to watch CNN and MSNBC, and their stories tend to mimic what is seen on the stations).
Posted by: ihateaphids | May 27, 2009 8:34 PM
and their stories tend to mimic what is seen on the websites
Posted by: Kate | May 27, 2009 8:35 PM
This chart gets at my problem with statements like "Young people get all their news off the internet." Well, if you mean the websites for the New York Times and Washington Post, then yes, many young people I know get their news off the internet. And if I read an article in a newspaper or magazine because one of my friends posted a link on a social networking site does that count as getting news through "social networking" or "newspaper" or "magazine?"
You can't even pretend these categories are even close to mutually exclusive.
Posted by: Max | May 27, 2009 8:36 PM
I don't know, the fear that that information will all be targeted someday gives me the jeebies... I can foresee a future where all information is advertisement
Posted by: frog | May 27, 2009 8:41 PM
Information means something. It's not an arbitrary fuzz-word, but a metric -- the most common version being the negative log of the probability.
This is the kind of crap I see all the time from folks using the word --- often graduate students in biology who wouldn't know information if it bit them in the ass, but who are claiming to understand how "brains" work.
Usually the same idiots who present papers but don't know what the axes are of the data they're presenting. They give the fuzzy feel-good explanation of the graph without any idea if it make sense, of how it was statistically derived or even what god-damn units are. But they can always give you n-teen different acronyms.
This little example is like the ultimate end of semi-retarded scientists who produce anything that looks good as "science". Lots of colorful movies and graphs with more colors than the vomit of a dying wino. Maybe they should all be exiled to self-published blog-land?
Posted by: eNeMeE | May 27, 2009 8:49 PM
I'm always sad when things like this show up and the mothership doesn't appear to take me away...
Posted by: george.w | May 27, 2009 8:52 PM
Social networking is as old as the watering hole, but it used to be called "gossip". One establishes and maintains a presence, friends, a reputation, within a group. Asynchronous digital tools have more reach, but still...
Posted by: Michelle | May 27, 2009 9:04 PM
I think I saw some cheap, mass-produced abstract art that resembles that graph... but I think the art might have had more valid data on it (they left the price tag on the frame).
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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May 27, 2009 9:07 PM
See, PZ, purveyors of woo can make graphs now, too. Isn't that cool. And to think this guy didn't have to sit through all those boring science classes and probably got stoned Thursday through Sunday. And now he makes 6 figures doodling with his box of crayons.
Posted by: Justin N
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May 27, 2009 9:07 PM
What's worse is that the graph is not only misleading, but flat-out wrong, at least in what my lab's working on. We find that (at least for political information) "primary reference groups", meaning the people that you generally come in contact with every day, family, friends, co-workers, the "local marketplace" part of this insipid graph is extremely important in people's understanding of the world. I'm also upset because, if this represented any sort of real scholarship or information, it'd be very cool stuff.
Posted by: Daniel de Rauglaudre
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May 27, 2009 9:23 PM
I love the expression "bullshit detector"! Made me laugh out loud. A new a funny way to say "critical thinking".
Posted by: Matt
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May 27, 2009 9:25 PM
My first taste of high school was while shadowing a senior. I stepped into a room of quiet students with a very stern looking man standing at the podium in front of the class. In his hands were a stack of graded papers, dripping in red ink. "These," he said, holding the papers above his head, "are shit!" With that remark he threw the papers in a scattered mess on the floor. Naturally, I was horrified. If, however, I had been familiar with PZ and his reaction to poor student work, I would not have flinched. Indeed, it could have been much worse if the professor has pulled down his pants and began to urinate on the poor, sorry mess.
Posted by: ihate | May 27, 2009 9:27 PM
wow frog, i really disagree with your post. the whole point of graduate school is to learn these things...if you see a student presenting such a paper you shouldn't mock or get angry but should instruct. that is how information is passed. we should only mock those who see information and willfully ignore it.
Posted by: john | May 27, 2009 9:27 PM
Slide rules and unit analysis were part of my high school memories. The slide rule I still have.
Posted by: James Sweet | May 27, 2009 9:27 PM
The graph would actually be fine if the curves weren't so wobbly/jagged. If they were completely smooth curves, then it would be clear that this is merely a schematic -- and you don't necessarily need units for a schematic. Of course, it also would need to be clear that, like you say, this is just some guy's impression.
The wobbliness to me is the real sin. It seems to imply there is real data underlying this, which of course there isn't. Drawing a schematic with the kind of "noise" you'd expect from real data is corny at best, and fraudulent at worst.
Posted by: Ian Monroe | May 27, 2009 9:36 PM
Benjamin Franklin would've been surprised to learn that by 1800 hardly anyone was reading newspapers and was instead just gossiping at the "marketplace."
Posted by: Fred the Hun
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May 27, 2009 9:36 PM
Since I'm a very advanced alien I just filter my daily dose of required information right out of the electromagnetic spectrum, that and telepathy.
I also tend to avoid humans that are wearing tinfoil hats, especially if they make pretty but meaningless pictures.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | May 27, 2009 9:42 PM
Charts and graphs
Are good for laughs.
Posted by: Jojo | May 27, 2009 9:52 PM
If I tossed up a graph like that for my program manager I'd get laughed out of the room. Come to think of it, most of my MBA teachers would have had a field day with it too.
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | May 27, 2009 9:52 PM
Re #85
Actually, it was Franklin who is credited with developing the first franchise.
He set up turnkey newspaper operations up and down the Atlantic coast and then sold them, collecting a portion of the revenues, which allowed him to retire a wealthy in his late 30's and pursue his interests in science, statesmanship, cocksmanship, and bacon.
Posted by: JackC
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May 27, 2009 9:58 PM
Count me as an alien. I looked at that chart and, without reading anything more, and certainly not the comments, said "Wait - what the hell is this measuring? What the hell is the Y axis value? How is this thing to be interpreted as other than a lot of pretty colours rolling along somewhat gracefully?"
In my case, it was my physics teacher. I had a VERY long "discussion" with his teaching assistant - one Mr. Rose - concerned with the little fact that two watches could not be simultaneously faster than each other.
No - I am not making that up.
JC
Posted by: Don Smith | May 27, 2009 10:01 PM
wjts got there first, but books and letters were the very first exception to this BS I thought of. Then there is the telegraph and telephone. But then I realized he was talking about advertising, not information. 'Twould explain his glaring omissions. Twitter anyone?
Posted by: foxfire | May 27, 2009 10:02 PM
PZ, you will *love* this - he "fixed" his graph (text explaining new, even more incomprehensible thing as follows:
The graph were? Looks like he didn't diagram no sentences either when he was a young'un. And "single day increments"? WTF?
Ah, unit analysis - love it!
Posted by: Kerri Love | May 27, 2009 10:06 PM
F for science
A+ for artistic impression ;)
Posted by: IAmMarauder | May 27, 2009 10:19 PM
On your idea of other people being aliens, I have to agree. Now I am not meaning the "Little green men in UFOs" type woo - and I have a hypothesis to back up my idea :)
My hypothesis goes as follows: The current thinking (and theories) on life is that we all evolved from a common set of ancestors, which were potentially formed from the various chemicals that were present during the formative years of the Earth. These chemicals are also present in many rocks and minerals that we can find.
Now given this I know people that are dumber than most rocks. Since the rocks are most likely terresttial in nature, that would mean these people have to be from a non-terrestrial source - thus alien to Earth.
Granted, there are some flaws in this hypothesis and I am happy for people to point them out. However it does give me some hope that mankind can eventually figure out where these lien organisms come from, how to identify them and potentially stop them. At the moment my testing is being done by discussing ideas with the test subject, and a control subject (the control subject bein a rock or rock like substance ). Discussions are rated on the intellectuality of the conversation - and from my current testing I have found many subjects where talking to a rock is a much better alternative.
For graphs like this maybe we can use a similar testing method - provide a picture of the graph and a picture of a rock and see which yields more information. In the example put forward by PZ I have a feeling an empty white square would actually yield much more information than the graph - at least you can use the white square to calibrate your monitor and check for dead pixels...
Posted by: «bønez_brigade»
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May 27, 2009 10:21 PM
I thought lolcats had their reign a couple of years ago; but, anyway, I look forward to the wide pink swath of their glorious return.
Posted by: SomeGuy | May 27, 2009 10:22 PM
'B' for artistic impression.
I'm reserving my 'A' for an interpretive dance of the graph data.
Posted by: LMAO | May 27, 2009 10:28 PM
Latest from the site:
ROFLMAO
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 27, 2009 10:34 PM
Yep: units and order-of-magnitude estimates. Got me through the high school and two engineering degrees (and that was even after calculators were permitted).
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 27, 2009 10:42 PM
Guess you're sending terrorists over to that site, PZ, and that critical thinking is offensive. I quote:
"Comments has been temporarily suspended due to an extraordinary amount of offensive comments."
Posted by: Keanus
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May 27, 2009 10:54 PM
People like this bring disrepute on the makers of real baloney. The Italians should rise up and trash this guys website.
And on the real issue of PZ's teaching style—that is, unit analysis and orders of magnitude—I learned both also from a similar high school chemistry teacher and have used both all my life (I'm past 70 now). Amazingly, I still run into people today who consider themselves engineers or science types who haven't a clue what I'm talking about, which I find amazing. And as for calculators—bah. They are the bane of my existence. If one doesn't know the dimensions (unit analysis) and order of magnitude of the answer one doesn't know squat and a calculator is useless.
Posted by: Thomas Baekdal | May 27, 2009 11:00 PM
Hi PZ, Thank you for this article. Interesting to read!
To answer your questions: The Y-axis is 'influence', or more specifically 0-100% influence.
As for the graph, then you already pointed out that there isn't any qualitative data for which it is based.
The point of the article is not to provide a historical or scientific analysis. The point is to get people to understand that the things that influence us is constantly changing. And for that reason the purpose of the graph is to visually illustrate these changes. This is why the timeline is flexible (which from a scientific point of view is a ridicules thing to do), and why it has pretty colors.
As for the accuracy, then I did spend quite some time getting it as ‘accurate as possible’, within the purpose of the article. The problem was that the y-axis is based on influence, and there is almost no surveys or data available for that (at least not what I could find). There are data for number of TV sold, newspapers subscribers, hours spent listening to radio etc. None of which give you a clear idea of how much each of them have influenced people. E.g. listening to radio all day doesn’t mean that it has any real influence on your life.
So I did what I believed to be the second best thing. I tried to figure it out by reading ‘between the lines’ and making educated guesses. This was of course highly unscientific.
So in order to refine and make it more accurate. I interviewed a number of people in my community. I basically asked them what they had been influenced by when they were younger. This revealed a number of very interested answers, and because of that I made a number of changes to the graph. E.g. Radio, which I had predicted to be much more important, was reduced. TV was pushed slightly forward, and the importance of newspapers was enhanced.
The future trends, is based on pure guesswork and speculation on my part. But so are all future trend predictions.
The end result is the graph that you see today. A highly unscientific graph that I believe is pretty accurate anyway.
However, I would welcome if you, or one of your readers, were to recreate the graph using scientifically accurate data. I would certainly like to see it.
Posted by: John Morales | May 27, 2009 11:08 PM
Thomas Baekdal, may I say your comment is much appreciated (by me at least).
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 27, 2009 11:08 PM
PZ, all:
Speaking of critical thinking, on the "Sotomayor reversal rate," can you teach the Wash Times five cases heard is NOT statistically significant?
http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/05/conservative-bs-on-sotomayor-reversal.html
Posted by: Roger
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May 27, 2009 11:10 PM
To recreate your graph would require a Y-axis with a unit of measure more quantifiable than "influence" as well as better thought out and articulated definitions of "social news," "targeted" and "local marketplace." The objection to this "graph" is that it pretends towards scientific research when it is nothing of the sort.
How can you claim it's "accuracy" when it's based on guesswork and speculation?
Posted by: Nathan R | May 27, 2009 11:19 PM
What I love about this "graph" is that there are three completely unlabeled segments - presumably in the future, we will glean about 20% of our information from...thin air? Awesome!
(And, yes, I would have expected more from my middle schoolers. This would not get a passing grade in my classroom, that's for sure!)
Posted by: Nephi
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May 27, 2009 11:27 PM
the graph could be more simple with smoother lines like this one:
http://www.studiodino.com/info/chart08.htm
Posted by: RBH | May 27, 2009 11:29 PM
The horseshit in that article starts early. Consider this gem:
I commend the author's attention to the Darwin Correspondence Project as an example of how much one could interact with people around the world without leaving Down House.Posted by: Thomas Baekdal | May 27, 2009 11:34 PM
John. Thank you!
SocraticGadfly, The comments were not suspended because there were critical. They were suspended because many of them included comparing me with things that you would not ordinarily associate with a human being. I deleted those comments and suspended commenting in general until further notice.
Roger, I do not claim that it is accurate. It claim that I 'believe it is accurate'. I could be wrong.
Nathan, The gray segments in the future are 'unknown future developments', which... is unknown. But you are right. I should have added an "unknown" label to them.
Posted by: Wesley | May 27, 2009 11:54 PM
Thomas: the main problem many of us had with your article was that it was seemingly pretending to be historical and based on... well, anything, when it's not.
You make all sorts of historical errors such as dismissing newspapers before 1900 (when in fact they had a VERY big influence throughout the 19th century) and completely ignoring books.
You make very messy methodology errors with your graph. You don't even state what it's measuring, only giving us "influence" after the fact. But what is influence? Now, if you had stated on the side that "measuring influence as defined by how these various forms of media have proportionally affected me and a few friends I polled," then there would be less to criticize, because at least then it wouldn't be pretending to be something that it's not (i.e., a remotely legitimate statistical graph).
Posted by: MWE | May 27, 2009 11:56 PM
What could it possibly mean to to "believe it is accurate" but not "claim it is accurate"? The only way this could possibly make sense is if you believed it were true but kept it to yourself. Obviously this is not the case, as you have posted it on the internet for all to see, so your believing it to be accurate must necessarily mean you claim it to be accurate.
I'd like to know why you believe/claim/whatever these predictions to be good approximations of what will happen in the future. You've admitted that your "evidence" consists of anecdotes from a couple of your friends rounded out with your own personal intuitions. Do you think this is sufficient to make broad, long term predictions that certain people will take seriously?
Posted by: timA | May 27, 2009 11:58 PM
i like cake!
Posted by: MadScientist | May 28, 2009 12:03 AM
If the improved version would only label those two strips which are also unlabeled in the original version, then it would be perfect and therefore there is a god. Go on - label those little slivers and prove there's a god - I dare you!
Posted by: MadScientist | May 28, 2009 12:06 AM
Oops ... I thought there were 2 unlabeled strips; Nathan @105 points out that there are 3. On closer inspection I think the stip in the corner is in fact divided into two similar colors with just slightly different shades. SO - how about labeling those strips and making the graph perfect?
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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May 28, 2009 12:06 AM
Books? Movies? Even a glancing knowledge of the cultural history of the twentieth century would imply that the graph needs a couple more coloured swaths. . . but that's beside the point. And notice how all newspapers and magazines are lumped into one colour and all television programmes are painted with the same brush, but blogs get a different stripe from social networks, neither of which count as websites? Once again, we see the "proximity of the familiar": distinctions among more recent developments are recognized, while differences of equal or larger magnitude in the past are glossed over.
One could go on (and on. . .). Does watching Cosmos or The Daily Show or Death Note on Hulu.com count as being influenced by TV, or by "websites"? What if a Daily Show clip were embedded in a blog entry? (It's been known to happen.) What about reading the New York Times online? Et cetera, ad sodding nauseam.
Yes, because an opportunity sample is a wonderful way to avoid response bias and promote accuracy.
[facepalm]
Posted by: Evolving Squid | May 28, 2009 12:09 AM
I think a goodly chunk of that article is bollocks - a pipe dream from people who work in marketing and think there is a panacea of cuddles and smiles and infinite dollars to be made off of marketing - dollars to be made through detailed mining of the massive databases of information gathered from sites like Facebook and Google, and dollars to be made on the products sold through this marketing. Certainly that seems to be the prevailing wisdom of people I know within the marketing business.
But I think they're largely wrong.
Traditionaly "suck up everything I can" internet migrated toward blogs because people realized that much of the content of the internet was shit. They wanted real content, hopefully useful content. At this stage, they also decided that, for the most part, they don't want to pay for that content either.
Blogs came on the scene and allowed everyone a voice. They were popular and simple. Soon everyone had a voice, and just as quickly, people realized that most voices talk shit.
Then social networking comes on the scene. People can keep in touch with other people that they don't care about or had long forgotten - often with good reason - whom they could not have otherwise recontacted. They do this by turning over a wealth of personal information to large corporations who make their money by packaging said information and selling it to marketing companies.
The marketing companies fill our lives with advertising. It's everywhere. It's so ubiquitous that there is a growing industry of advertising blocking technology. People are inundated by ads, and they're becoming numb. My prediction: social networking use will eventually decline as people realize that their personal information is being used against them in the form of ever intrusive marketing, combined with eventually remembering exactly why people originally lost contact with the bulk of the folks that now occupy their "friends" list (i.e. people they didn't give a shit about back in the old days and still don't).
People are going to want their personal (cyber)space back. They're going to set boundaries. Things like blogs are not going to go away, but there will be a shift toward big popular blogs and blogs like mine which are the electronic equivalent of a crazy person standing on a soapbox. Look to see anti-spam legislation becoming nearly worldwide, which will seriously curtail "targeted" advertising. Look to see people demanding real customer service again, instead of bollocksy automated response systems.
It's my prediction that much sooner than later, people will realize that they simply don't give a shit what SexyChick348458 is doing 140 characters at a time, every 5 minutes. People want useful information, and they want an element of privacy. People really don't want to live in a world of marketing crap where the marketers have made efforts to obfuscate the line between people who care about you for real and people who are trying to sell you something.
Posted by: Cowcakes | May 28, 2009 12:11 AM
Wow great graph. My only comment on what information it presents is this, oooooh pretty colours.
Posted by: TBRP | May 28, 2009 12:22 AM
Now I admit, my first reaction was to give the benefit of the doubt, and to assume the author was just trying to give a qualitative idea of what he thought the current data flows come to the masses through. If it's just a qualitative stab in the dark, that's not necessarily bad, right? But then reading the guy try to defend his "analysis" (his word, not mine) in the comments, that's when I realized that he actually thought this was a proportionally accurate depiction (of "Influence")! Because he's seen surveys and stuff.
Posted by: Evolving Squid | May 28, 2009 12:23 AM
I just recently went through a long debate with a professional marketer about this very topic. It's true that the public relations/marketing industry genuinely believes that people will flock to social networking and social communication (Facebooks and Twitters) in great droves. There, they are expected to turn over their personal information to be mined by marketers, who sell the results to companies and who use the results to target advertising to each person.
They think it's reasonable and ethical to, for example, get two fake people to follow you on twitter and have a conversation about some product and how awesome it is, so that you'll see the conversation and think how awesome it is.
This guy's company's position is that targeted marketing through social media is *THE* way of the future, and that everyone will be getting their important info through social media.
As you can conjecture from my previous post, I think that guy, his company and his colleagues in the business are grossly overestimating the future of social media, even if only the part about listening to two people you don't know talking about some product you may not care about will somehow make you interested and likely to purchase.
Personally, I use facebook although I tightly control what my contacts can see. I had a Twitter account but I deleted it after 5 weeks as it was useless from my perspective... a near total waste of bandwidth.
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 28, 2009 12:25 AM
@Thomas Baekdal, various posts:
As a newspaper editor, I wouldn't even bother with such vague New Media-type woo in your graph. Yes, newspapers may be dying, but there's many things addressed by others above.
I'll add on:
1. What do you mean by "information"? You don't define it.
2. You don't distinguish between information quality and quantity.
3. Your idea that radio is down to near zero already is probably laughable to fans of Rush Limbaugh. Since you don't define the word "information," his bloviating alone is much higher than your near-zero point.
4. If you count things like Delphi forums, social networks have been around online for 15 years now.\
5. What is "targeted"? SEO bots? That's not "information" in any real sense.
Go back to your website and blow it up. (Put out the doobie while you're at it.)
I'm sorry, I guess that insult was impertinent, because:
And, who are we to question "greatness," mere mortals that we be?
Swallow all your SEO marketing buzzwords, THEN blow up your website.
Posted by: Evolving Squid | May 28, 2009 12:27 AM
- Tweets on Twitter
- Shit posted by other people on your home page on Facebook
- Random crap that acquaintances of acquaintances of acquaintances who follow you on Linked-in spam you with through the Linked-in email system.
- a magical medium that marketers hope will take over the universe
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 28, 2009 12:39 AM
@Evolving Squid 115:
Indeed, indeed on the "war" between online ads and adblocking.
If you have Firefox, with pop-up blocker, and have a full-blown hosts file to boot (much more than comes with your puter -- Google it, or go to my blog and search on that term; my hosts file is more than 600 pages long) you don't have to see a single ad, until you need an occasional update on the hosts file.
That's why traditional hardcopy print media thinking they can still, somehow, find salvation on the Net are deluding themselves, and I'm a newspaper editor.
(By percentage drop, the print MSM, from 2007 to 2008, had a GREATER drop in online ad revenue than hardcopy revenue.)
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 28, 2009 12:41 AM
Obama didn’t ask Sotomayor her stance on abortion? Just a week or so before his big Notre Dame speech on just that subject? Puhleeze; even for Just.Another.Politician.™ that’s a whopper.
Posted by: RickD
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May 28, 2009 1:06 AM
You lost, SocraticGadfly? I don't think this post has anything to do with Sotomayor or abortion.
Personally, I doubt Obama "asked" her about abortion. He probably had already been told what her position was.
Given that Sandra Day O'Connor supported upholding Roe v. Wade, I think you'd be very hard-pressed to find a female Democratic judge who would be disposed to vote to overturn it. It is, after all, considered established law. The Suprmeme Court is not the same thing as a legislative body, after all.
Posted by: Mutha Teresa | May 28, 2009 1:06 AM
A touch of the pointless infographic disease, I fancy.
TV is a particularly bad offender when it comes to impressive-but-meaningless charts. The British satirist Chris Morris captured this brilliantly in his spoof documentary Brass Eye.
Behold!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mnVWJpMhuE
Posted by: Muzz | May 28, 2009 1:10 AM
A little late here but: Don't worry about it PZ, you just stumbled into the Marketing&Media-sphere briefly. It's crammed with vapid self congradulatory balderdash like this.
Do not linger lest you go mad.
Posted by: Jeremy O'Wheel | May 28, 2009 1:13 AM
Sorry if other people have mentioned this. I can't be bothered reading your comments though.
1. What is the difference between blogs and websites? Isn't a blog also a website?
2. Don't blogs generally get their information from websites?
3. What's the deal with the numbers along the bottom of the "graph" ?
Posted by: Evolving Squid | May 28, 2009 1:14 AM
@Socratic...
I still read newspapers. It's part of the morning ritual. After I read the paper, I turn on the radio and listen to the radio news (not satellite, actual regular radio). I tend to not read newspaper ads though. In any case, a day that doesn't start with reading the paper is just messed up :)
I rarely watch television. Maybe 1 hour every 3 months. Perhaps a little more in the spring if Vancouver or Ottawa is in the hockey playoffs. I only saw the Shamwow ad for the first time ever just 4 weeks ago.
When I want product info, I go to the companies directly via their web site or to their authorized dealers.
It's old fashioned, perhaps, but it does seem to be relatively efficient and effective.
Posted by: Evolving Squid | May 28, 2009 1:21 AM
1. A blog is a specific presentation of material on the web, usually ordered chronologically and often relating to a small number of topics. A web site is any sputum that is served up in HTML. All blogs are web sites, but not all web sites are blogs.
2. If you looked at all the possible blogs out there, and I'm guessing here but I feel confident, you'd probably find that the bulk of them get information simply by making shit up. That is true simply because the bulk of the blogs out there are personal in nature. Each blogger does whatever amount of research they feel is appropriate before they write. That research may involve web sites, but doesn't have to.
Posted by: Denis Alexander | May 28, 2009 1:33 AM
What's all the fuzz about. Everyone understand that the data on the y-axis have been normalized. That's why they have no units.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | May 28, 2009 1:37 AM
I see a few main problems with this graph. I mean, there are others, but let's not spend the whole day on it.
1. The categories are a bit fuzzy, and a little more analysis would have been useful to decide how to cluster and segment them better
2. Some media seem to be missing (already mentioned). Newspapers or gazettes have existed since the 17th century; bill posting is rather old too, and let's not forget the sermons in church... etc, etc.
3. Why the vertical axis in %? It gives an illusory impression of accuracy. The analysis should rest on a fuzzier measurement system, such as a 5 points scale from 'not at all" to "a lot". Of course, you can't add it and get a percentage; you have to give separate curves. And they'd better be well smoothed, so people don't believe they're based on precise numeric data.
4. The graph should be topped by a title stating very explicitely that it's based on the visual representation of a general idea, not on numbers. It could be labelled "Conceptual graph" or something like that.
Posted by: Bennettt | May 28, 2009 1:56 AM
Damn, this graph really got your cajones twisted in a tiffy didn't it?
It actually looks pretty reasonable, even if it isn't based on so call verifiable numbers.
Here's a number. 67% of people that complain are usually people that have ulterior motives, and expect to make financial gain as result of their publicly declared dissatisfaction.
Posted by: Evolving Squid | May 28, 2009 2:12 AM
The graph is intended to show people the inevitability of targeted marketing... greasing our backsides for a penetration that marketers feel is not only predetermined, but is their righteous destiny.
All the stuff before social media is largely irrelevant. They would have us believe that social media is *THE* place to be and ultimately, that marketers will be there to target marketing info to our individual, specific needs.
Of course, we need more advertising like we need pineapple buttsecks...
Posted by: blf | May 28, 2009 2:13 AM
My own reaction to being given so-called “data” or graphs or (since I work as a software guru) specifications/descriptions without units is to assume the missing unit(s) are “beer”, or something closely related (e.g., “pints per bug”). So, for instance, when someone writes that such-and-such is “the size”, my review comments tends to be something like “What is this ‘size’ measured in? Number of pints of beer I drank last trying to understand what the units are for this ‘size’?”.
A variation on this is when a state is missing or under-specified. For instance, for a description like (and people really do write shite like this) “true if allowed”, I'll say something like “If what's allowed? Watering down my beer? And what happens if it's false? Do I then get a free pint of beer?”.
At least at work, this is starting to get the message across. My perception is I'm seeing fewer specs/papers/whatevers with bunged-up/missing units. Useless descriptions (and the related evil, missing definitions) don't seem to have changed much however. Sighs…
Posted by: Evolving Squid | May 28, 2009 2:17 AM
off topic...
"pineapple buttsecks" gets nearly 70 hits on google. It's 2 AM, and now I have to try to sleep knowing that there is actually enough interest in "pineapple buttsecks" around the world to spawn more than 60 pages (none of which appear to be in Japan, where it wouldn't surprise me at all).
I can't find a graph, however. Perhaps PB is the upper corner grey area on the topic graph?
Posted by: Bruce Gorton | May 28, 2009 2:24 AM
Bennettt
The whole thing is utter twaddle.
For example, the line on radio: Radio as an information source is far more endemic than the graph would tell you. Why? Because people listen to the radio in their cars, at the very least to get the latest traffic report.
Graphic media doesn't work as well for that because you are supposed to be keeping your eyes on the road.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward | May 28, 2009 2:25 AM
Wow, that graph is so inane, it actually cured my information overload.
Posted by: Susan | May 28, 2009 2:36 AM
Stuff like this always makes more sense when looked at through the lens of marketing.
To earthlings.
Posted by: Happy Tentacles
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May 28, 2009 2:44 AM
A pretty wavy flaggy thing, drawn by somebody with no knowledge of history, who seems not to have heard of old-fashioned things called Books and Letters. Utter rubbish!
Posted by: Dancaban | May 28, 2009 3:20 AM
Don't be so hard on it. Makes a superb pattern for a duvet cover...
Posted by: hje | May 28, 2009 3:39 AM
I WILL HAZ NO SINGULARITY? OH NOES! I WILL DIEZ!
LOL-KURZWEIL
Posted by: Drosera
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May 28, 2009 3:43 AM
For that guy, information is probably equivalent to sales talk and advertisements.
Posted by: Masks of Eris | May 28, 2009 3:53 AM
Well, it's a pretty picture anyway; but would have been prettier with a footnote about data and opinion.
And the article has a Wulff Morgenthaler comic in it. WM is very much worth reading, though the 911 piece says nothing about its usual level of... erm, unspeakability.
(Also: I'm happy to note the graph gets one thing right: the squid mind control implants. See, there in the upper right-hand corner, the grey bits.)
Posted by: Twisted_Colour | May 28, 2009 3:53 AM
PeeZed,
New episode of The Chaser's War on Everything. I think you'll enjoy the assault on the Vatican with a blimp. I'm surprised the buggers aren't in jail.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/#/latestepisode/chaser_09_03_01/
Posted by: Peter Ashby | May 28, 2009 3:59 AM
For me the units thing was a Physics teacher in New Zealand, probably the young guy who wore sandals and his academic robe on Fridays. Then in real science I discovered the wonder that is ratios, in a ratio the units cancel out. I used to scratch my head big time over dilutions, especially from say millimolar down to picomolar. With ratios it's a snip and you only have to worry about the powers of 10. You just have to know your final desired volume.
Posted by: rusk | May 28, 2009 4:20 AM
About the news from gaming thing: someone told me Bruce Willis was dead in text chat in TF2 a few weeks back. This was news to me.
Turns out he's not dead, but... news from gaming, zomg!
Posted by: llewelly | May 28, 2009 4:33 AM
Bennettt | May 28, 2009 1:56 AM:
Very keen insight sir.
In fact, the truth of your words is shown by this fact: Only minutes after Mr. Dr. PZ Myers posted this article, a black helicopter landed in his back yard. Two men in expensive black suits and black sunglasses got out, carrying a SUITCASE FULL OF MONEY. This money was taken into the house of Dr. Mr. PZ Myers.
Posted by: Samantha Vimes | May 28, 2009 7:01 AM
Apparently, I'm an alien, too, and I'm proud of it. This thing looked like nonsense with scarcely a moment's thought.
Posted by: Moggie
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May 28, 2009 7:19 AM
#16:
Influential business executives have made decisions using the rectal extraction method for as long as there have been businesses. The world still turns.
Posted by: dr | May 28, 2009 7:19 AM
"What do you want?"
"Information."
"You won't get it."
"By hook or by crook, we will."
Posted by: brasidas | May 28, 2009 7:38 AM
He suspended comments just after being pharyngulated! (Sorry if this has already been noted)
Posted by: AJ Milne | May 28, 2009 7:42 AM
It's too late. I already have...
It was the colours. The pretty, pretty, swirling colours...
/Heads off to prepare PowerPoint presentation on why Lolcats-enabling technologies will be da synergy leveraging value-added paradigm-shifting strategically positioned singularity-inducing bomb in Q3 2010...
Posted by: moopet | May 28, 2009 8:13 AM
I think it maps better onto "popularity of colours of swimwear". In fact, I'd take a bet that that's what it was, originally, until they changed the words.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | May 28, 2009 8:17 AM
You mean, you'd been working under the impression that Faith Popcorn and her ilk used real data in projecting trends?
No, seriously. You've never heard of Faith Popcorn? She has more bestselling books that P. Z. Myers.
Here, check out the website -- and pay special attention to the tabs "How We Work" and "Brailling the Culture."
http://www.faithpopcorn.com/
And -- damn! -- she gets paid big bucks for this!
Posted by: Greg | May 28, 2009 8:22 AM
@150 He suspended comments just after being pharyngulated! (Sorry if this has already been noted)
But first he said that "the Y-axis is "influence" now I'm taking my ball and going home".
Posted by: Tim | May 28, 2009 8:34 AM
My friends think the second version would make a pretty scarf. If anyone's interested in making it, we'd probably buy it.
Posted by: Brad Walters | May 28, 2009 8:37 AM
You know what they say... 47% of all statistics are made up on the spot... oh wait, I just made that up.
Posted by: Bill Ringo | May 28, 2009 9:00 AM
This is what happens when home schooled children think they might take a crack at the 'social sciences'.
Posted by: ethin | May 28, 2009 9:12 AM
I like the idea of getting my news from LOLCATS. It would be remarkably efficient and cute.
Posted by: Ryan | May 28, 2009 9:24 AM
You mock the chart but, like everyone else, I know I stopped getting all my information from the local marketplace back in 2000. I remember it fondly.
Posted by: Carlie | May 28, 2009 9:40 AM
One could also get all their news from happynews.com. Not quite as cute as an lolcat, but close.
Posted by: Jim A. | May 28, 2009 9:43 AM
"One of the future places it says people will get their information is gaming. Gaming??? How the heck are you going to get news from Gaming?"
I, for one have learned that the Capitol Wasteland is overrun with supermutants and that you should never go downtown without a combat shotgun.
Posted by: George | May 28, 2009 9:50 AM
The graph is wrong. Ball State's Center for Media shows that in 2009 TV viewing is at an all time high across all demographics including teens. This author says the opposite, why? becuase it fits his preconceived ideas.
This is like creationist theories, just made up junk!
Posted by: JBlilie | May 28, 2009 9:55 AM
My teenager's science and math teachers do this too: It makes you think about the parameters and have a realistic expectation ahead of time so that when the detailed results come in, you can do an immediate reality check.
I do this all the time in my daily work. It really helps.
It's also a nice part of a hierarchy of decision points to decide if it's even worth pursuing the details.
Posted by: Ric | May 28, 2009 9:57 AM
And.... he's closed the comments. Looks like he can't take valid criticism.
Posted by: seanjjordan | May 28, 2009 9:59 AM
The management magazines love this sort of thing -- an idea that has the pretense of being scientific, but without all those messy limitations. The same sort of thinking let to something called the "Net Promoter Score," which has been discredited by many studies, but which continues to lurk around the management circles.
Those of us in marketing research (where good social science is supposed to be practiced) hate this sort of thing.
Posted by: JMk2 | May 28, 2009 10:02 AM
Some people apparently get their information (belief reinforcement?) from the undersides of Marmite bottle lids ("Family see Jesus image in Marmite"):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8071865.stm
Posted by: Shinobi42 | May 28, 2009 10:03 AM
That guy could probably get a job at any major newspaper doing "science" reporting and making graphs.
Too bad newspapers have only 11 years to live.
Posted by: JBlilie | May 28, 2009 10:05 AM
@151:
Then you'd better network with Action Item:
http://professionalsuperhero.com/
Posted by: Anonymous | May 28, 2009 10:08 AM
"....but...this one goes up to eleven!"
Sorry. Had to be said in any discussion on the importance of units. Or maybe I should say eleventy eleven!!!111! so we can link Spinal Tap to LOLcats!
Posted by: Epikt
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May 28, 2009 10:38 AM
Thomas Baekdal:
That's why they invented these things called "words." Why not use them, instead of trying to create a faux credibility for your jabber by pseudoquantifying it?
Posted by: Epikt
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May 28, 2009 10:40 AM
Apologies. There are plenty of words in the actual article. I should have specified "words that make sense."
Posted by: SteveM
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May 28, 2009 10:43 AM
Even a normalized graph, while technically unitless, needs to say what it is normalizing. A graph of 0-100 percent is meaningless without stating what it is a percentage of.
Posted by: Raging Bee | May 28, 2009 11:17 AM
What a jucking foke! I just looked at the "About Baekdal.com" link, and here's what it sez:
'Baekdal.com is a magazine about “greatness”. It is showcasing great products, great innovations and great experiences. Followed with a number of articles about how to create that experience - and why.
'Baekdal.com is also the home of the “Boom! Search assistant” and “WEB2DNA”, a tool that can convert any website into DNA art.
'Baekdal.com is read by about 200,000 people/month, of which, about 70% is from the US, and 20% from Europe...'
The "About Steven Baekdal" link was down.
This reads like something you'd expect from Dave Pollard, the "Knowledge Worker" of "How to Save the World" fame. All self-importance and hip-sounding meta-factoids, no actual substance. It's bordering on what Ivan Stang once called "bulldada."
Posted by: Emmet, OM
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May 28, 2009 11:39 AM
Wikipedia tells me that William G. Perry defines the intransitive verb “to bull(shit)” thus:
To discourse upon the contexts, frames of reference and points of observation which would determine the origin, nature, and meaning of data if one had any. To present evidence of an understanding of form in the hope that the reader may be deceived into supposing a familiarity with content.
Yep, that just about covers it.
Posted by: Professor Peewee | May 28, 2009 11:43 AM
I like the new graph...personally I still get most of my information from Liner Notes...;-)
Posted by: Roger
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May 28, 2009 11:44 AM
"Roger, I do not claim that it is accurate. It claim that I 'believe it is accurate'. I could be wrong."
Your last sentence is about the only thing I agree with. Actually, I don't. It's not that you could be wrong; it's that you definitely are wrong, for all the reasons stated by others. For the love of science, stop trying to pass of futuristic woo and your own biased suppositions as scientific work. If you want to analyze trends, you should probably know the histories of the trends you're working with (i.e., your ignoring the ways in which people transmitted information and knowledge prior to the Internet).
Posted by: Anne | May 28, 2009 11:44 AM
I had a contractor working on a government project, very similar to ones done in other states, COMPLETELY MISS the point when I pointed out that the years along the bottom of his figure were at an inconsistent time scale. Despite me raising the issue, it never was fixed, and makes the future conditions necessary look easier to attain. The same mistake pops up in all the other states, too.
Posted by: Rick | May 28, 2009 11:49 AM
Damn. That's me busted, then.
Do you...frequently search for lurking extraterrestrials, Dr. Myers?
Posted by: Emmet, OM
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May 28, 2009 11:59 AM
Me too. Probably the first time I heard it (or close enough) was when the late Noel Browne — Minister for Health in Ireland in the 50's, a very effective health minister, who was both popular and controversial — was interviewed on his retirement from politics in 1982. The host (IIRC it was Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show) asked him which of his personal qualities he thought contributed most to his success — after a brief thoughtful pause, he replied emphatically: “a built-in bulletproof shit-detector”.
Posted by: Gustav Nyström | May 28, 2009 12:13 PM
Based on this Solid Science by Blake Stacey I predict that by 2015 all information will be beamed telepathically by Our Cephalopod Overlords directly in to our brains. in may 2020 the Singularity happens. I don't claim this is true, I just believe it is.
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 28, 2009 12:14 PM
@Rick 123, no, not lost. That said, given that Sotomayor has not had a single abortion ruling in court beyond the Mexico City case, it strains credulity to believe that Obama could know her position on Roe without asking, which is why many reproductive groups are antsy. (Another reason why I'm glad I didn't vote for The One.)
If you want to continue to be credulous, though, go ahead.
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 28, 2009 12:18 PM
@Squid 127; thanks, and I agree. I see Mr. Bakelite isn't sticking around to defend his plasticine ideas any more, either.
Posted by: Raging Bee | May 28, 2009 12:18 PM
The point is to get people to understand that the things that influence us is constantly changing.
He could have done that with a few sentences and had a valid point. Instead he gave us a transparently phony "chart" just to add sciencey cred, and a lot of pseudo-intellectual posturing that only highlighted his historical ignorance, and flushed his credibility down the toilet. Strip away all the BS, and all you're left with is one guy trying to pretend he's saying something new and meaningful.
Posted by: Bert Chadick | May 28, 2009 12:21 PM
I'm way ahead of the curve. I already get my news off LOL Cats.
Posted by: Raging Bee | May 28, 2009 12:29 PM
Two more sources of "news" or "influence" this guy is missing: churches and rulers. Does he really think churches and rulers had no role at all in feeding information to the masses?
Seriously, this Baekdal guy is an idiot.
Posted by: Raging Bee | May 28, 2009 12:37 PM
The graph has been much improved.
Not until you specify whether the LOLCats were "targeted." Enquiring minds want to know, you know...
"Ur chart needz hairballz...there, fixd it."
Posted by: dinkum
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May 28, 2009 12:40 PM
The "built-in bulletproof shit detector" is Hemingway, when describing the best tool for any writer. I think it's in Death in the Afternoon.
Posted by: Andrew | May 28, 2009 2:41 PM
It's pretty obvious the "numbers" are pulled out of thin air.
Radio has it's period of prominence about 1960-1980 in the graph. I think 1920-1950 would be more realistic (but I wouldn't have it dwindling down to nothing in more recent years). Television doesn't kick in until the 90s; you've got to be kidding me.
Posted by: william e emba | May 28, 2009 3:20 PM
Both versions of the graph left out the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, which is where I learn pretty much all I know about TV, sports, movies, and church architecture.
Which reminds me. This past Sunday's second NYT Magazine puzzle (the double acrostic) was particularly easy. (It's the first time in ten years I correctly guessed both the author and title after my first pass on the clues. Usually, I don't even recognize either after the puzzle is over.) Not only were the author and title of high interest for readers of this blog, but the clues were all biologically themed. Among other things, I learned the sound a turtle makes when it feels threatened.
Posted by: rickflick | May 28, 2009 3:23 PM
What!!! Folklore died out in 1999? Don't nobody reads du bible anymore? For pete's sake!!
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 28, 2009 4:30 PM
@Squid 127 and others. Here’s my take, per counter-technology, etc. in the escalating “war” against ads on why online ads won’t rescue traditional print media.
Posted by: jim | May 28, 2009 5:41 PM
The graph reminded me of this type of diagram for classifying igneous rocks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mineralogy_igneous_rocks_EN.svg
Posted by: jim | May 28, 2009 5:42 PM
The graph reminded me of this type of diagram for classifying igneous rocks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mineralogy_igneous_rocks_EN.svg
Posted by: Ed Darrell | May 28, 2009 5:48 PM
1.
Ah. Well, you'll love the link to Faith Popcorn's stuff in my post above. Can you tell us about the hard science in "Brailling" anything? What sort of units do we use to "Braille" something?
2. Though I have never found a source I consider authoritative, I believe the first instant of use of "shit detector" was Hemingway's answer to a question about what makes a good writer; his response was, "a solid gold shit detector." List it as "attributed."
3. I actually have studied marketing, and as a press guy in successful political campaigns, I'm vain enough to think I almost understand some of it. It helps, I think, to have a good journalism background with large doses of science thrown in -- to fine tune the excrement detectors, regardless their being solid gold, gilded, or just the pig iron versions. Any excrement detector works, so long as it's turned on. Human noses are even more sensitive, though, and I find it bad practice to rely on an excrement detector's reading of 0 when your nose tells you otherwise.
That said, television producers and other executives do try to measure what influences people, and I've seen some very good studies done when surveyors approach the question from different angles.
So, In the past 35 years I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the study that shows the most trusted news source for most people is "spouse." Wife and husband jokes notwithstanding, most marriages don't last long after one spouse stops trusting the other to get the headlines right across the morning coffee, or to accurately repeat the NPR or Westwood 1 news headline when you missed it rinsing your hair in the shower. Especially that news is useful when your tail is on the line to get out the vote for your candidate in a very close race. I think I can predict a person's vote more than 80% of the time if I know the vote of the spouse. I've been in campaigns where our winning margin was not much more than the spouses we didn't pursue plus the spouses we did pursue, based solely on that criterion.
I note that "spouse" does not appear on that chart, anywhere as a source of news.
There are other sources, of course. But I wonder how accurate can be any survey of information sources that fails to account what has probably been the top source of information for at least 4,000 of the past 5,000 years.
Bet that guy isn't an advisor to Obama's campaign.
Posted by: Mischa Atkinson | May 28, 2009 5:54 PM
"Influence" means where people look at ads, right? (@#101) I mean, I don't really get marketing speak, but I'm sure we're not talking about where people get *news* or *information*, but where they get advertised at. People have done a pretty good job ripping the nonsense apart in the comments (we stopped talking face-to-face in '98, for example, and television will die in 2020), but what about billboards, flyers, and posters? If we were to pretend that this was in some way accurate, and assume that it refers to advertising rather than news, wouldn't these be a factor? I know there are days when the only advertising I see is billboards and posters. And they can't count as "targeted", because that category only started about 2007.
Posted by: Loew01 | May 29, 2009 11:32 AM
Um... and what the heck is between "social news" and "targeted"?
$10 that this kind of garbage was made by an MLMer...
Posted by: Everbleed | May 29, 2009 2:00 PM
Live long and prosper... Alien PZ!
Posted by: emote_control | May 29, 2009 2:11 PM
Since Mr. Baekdal shut down comments on his article shortly after setting the record straight on the secret identity of his y-axis, I'll make fun of him here.
I'm a teacher. I have been a teaching assistant for many university-level science classes, especially those which encourage that students to think and write about science. I will shortly be receiving my bachelor of education and go on to turn young minds toward the wonder and marvel of modern science.
I'm going to bookmark and save your post--charts, commentary, and all--and I'm going to show it to my classes. I'm going to have them read it, and then I'm going to have them write a report on why it's not worth a damn. I'm going to point out the way you base your account on absolutely no facts. I'm going to mention that your made-up analysis of the eras you highlight are riddled with historical errors. I'm going to challenge them to try to come up with a sensible explanation for your y-axis, and then explain to them why they failed to do so.
This post is probably the best example of why you should not believe things you see on the internet. It's almost glorious in its vacuousness. There are words, and pictures, and even close-ups of those pictures, but there's absolutely no content at all. One might read the post and think that they have been reading comprehensible English sentences, but at the end they come away no better informed--and possibly worse. You have provided me with a tool to begin to teach students to recognize bull, and for that I thank you. With your help, I hope to help generations of young people to come into their adult lives with less credulity and more insight.
Posted by: «bønez_brigade»
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May 29, 2009 11:49 PM
@Twisted_Colour [#143],
Thanks for the note about the Chaser's WoE; that Vatican scene was a riot. FWIW, the 4 parts to that episode are also on YT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0CQppDBg6Q
Posted by: Christopher | June 19, 2009 6:55 PM
Awesome critique, thanks! I've copied this crazy chart to save as an example of 'what not to do' when teaching data vis.
Posted by: Christopher | June 19, 2009 6:57 PM
Awesome critique, thanks! I've copied this crazy chart to save as an example of 'what not to do' when teaching data vis.