

34.5% of US Internet Population Not using Facebook/Twitter - hownottowrite
http://www.jamiegrove.com/user-experience/34-5-of-us-internet-population-not-using-facebooktwitter

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diego
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

And then the OP runs a questionable survey that doesn't warrant the conclusion
(which by the way, is not earth-shattering).

\- You could not be on Facebook / Twitter and still pick one of the other
answers.

\- You could be one of the services but not the other, and pick the first
answer. What does Facebook "/" Twitter mean? AND or OR? Completely unclear.

\- If the order of the options wasn't randomized, you would likely get a bias
towards the first option. Don't know if this was the case.

~~~
azakai
The article does say the order was randomized.

But there is a bigger problem: one of the options is "I’m scared of scams."
Regardless of reading order, if you read all the options before answering -
and presumably most people do - then this causes what psychologists call a
"priming" effect. You start to think about scams, and you can then behave very
differently than if that option were not in the survey.

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diego
I agree. There's a great "Yes Prime Minister" video about this. I just wrote a
blog post about how it relates to this poll.

[http://diegobasch.com/google-surveys-know-what-you-are-
askin...](http://diegobasch.com/google-surveys-know-what-you-are-asking)

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overgard
Perhaps I missed it, but that was missing the answer I would have given, which
is "No - Because I don't trust any company to give them that much access to
me, even if I do like their service". The closest thing was "No - I'm afraid
of scams"; but I'm not really afraid of scams as much as lost/misplaced data,
company policies changing with respect to my privacy, etc.

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mojuba
Agreed; but I'd put that (missing) option as: _No - due to privacy concerns_

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reinhardt
This. It's not (necessarily) a matter of scam, I just want to keep my activity
in different parts of the internet segregated.

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Ogre
There's not an answer on there I could honestly choose if I'd taken that
survey. I would have voted No. But I am on both services, I do understand how
it works, and I am not scared of scams.

I just don't see why I should - creating an account using an email address is
also easy and by this point don't most people understand how it works? If they
managed to sign up for facebook or twitter, they clearly do!

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bunderbunder
_creating an account using an email address is also easy_

How about companies like Pinterest and Spotify that only let you sign up with
a Facebook or Twitter account?

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wazoox
One of the most interesting part of this article is that it made me discover
this google survey tool.

For the rest, I'm quite sure there's a skew here, because people without
internet access or not using it for browsing (mostly older people) should be
under-represented. I don't want to believe that 65% of everybody in the US is
using FB.

~~~
pgeorgi
It's somewhat pointless to ask people without internet access if they're
interested in logging into websites using another website account.

So yes, that's the web using subset of total population, totally fine for this
question.

That aspect is more of an issue if you want to use Google Surveys to determine
whether to start a new supermarket on Main Street. I hope the Google Survey
people propose some other service for such inquiries.

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AndrewDucker
I wouldn't sign up for a site using FB/Twitter unless there was a solid
technical reason to (i.e. Buffer and Twitter, because it's a Twitter-posting
app).

And that's because I see no reason to associate my Facebook (family/friend-
facing, lots of personal stuff on there) with any company. I like to keep a
strict firewall in there.

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mistercow
>Google has a whitepaper explaining how this tool works and why it’s as good
if not better than doing telephone surveys. I’m going to trust that Google’s
stats wizards know their stuff

But... they have a clear bias in favor of telling you that it's better than
telephone surveys. Clearly you should not trust a claim like that without
looking at an independent analysis.

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andrewparker
Yes, this survey design is questionable by most standards.

But, it's not a survey design disaster and is likely a "directionally correct"
reflection of internet users' actual behavior.

Are exactly 34.5% of the US Internet Population not using fb/twitter? Of
course not, but I suspect that number is pretty close.

If you're building a social networking app, this is an opportunity.

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Zak
Missing option: no, because I hate it.

That's essentially my answer. I have accounts with both Facebook and Twitter.
I understand how the authentication works, and I'm not afraid such requests
are scams (note: that's mostly a subset of not understanding how it works). I
don't want my online identity tied to a third party account whose operator has
few obligations to me.

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shmerl
The result looks reassuring, that there are still people who care about their
privacy. (I'm not using Facebook and Twitter both).

Requiring to sign in with FB or Twitter is disrespectful. If some site offers
external authentication, let it use OpenID or BrowserID already.

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jfmercer
Wouldn't a better title be "65.5% of US Internet Population using
Facebook/Twitter"?

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nhebb
Interesting results, but I'm skeptical as to whether the sample results can be
extrapolated to the U.S. internet population as a whole.

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veyron
That also means 65.5% of US Internet population is using Facebook or Twitter,
a mind boggling statistic

~~~
SoftwareMaven
65.5% of the web browsing, any-other-demographic-and-psychographic-modifying-
aspect-of-Google-Survey population. That makes it harder to say how boggling
of a statistic it is. Far greater than 65.5% of my household accesses Facebook
and/or Twitter.

~~~
veyron
"Far greater than 65.5% of my household accesses Facebook and/or Twitter."

In my social circles, Facebook/Twitter usage clocks in at about 15%, so the
numbers of the survey were at least minimally surprising ...

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antidoh
Interesting that the percentage of a group that claims not to be on FB/TW goes
from

* a high of 41.7% for the 65+ group.

and moves steadily down through the groups to

* 27.4% for the 25-34 group.

but then jumps back up to

* 34.7% for 18-24 year olds.

~~~
jorgem
My theory: Twitter with a pay-as-you-text phone plan is not wise (if you like
to get tweets as texts). Hence the kids can't afford it.

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antidoh
Do most kids and people in general have all you can eat text or pay as you
text? I've been pay as you text, but now that my teenage son has his own phone
(and all you can eat text, because he's gonna text ...) I will have to move my
plan to all you can eat just to survive his comms.

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mariuolo
There's hope for humanity.

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mergesort
1,817 random samples is not a good way to represent a population of
300,000,000+. What kind of audience is represented by someone who would take a
random poll on the internet? Probably someone who is not that tech savvy,
skewing the already small sample size.

~~~
arrrg
1,817 truly randomly sampled people would be pretty great and plenty for good
data.

The problem here is that the sample is not random.

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kzahel
Sometimes I let sites sign me in with FB/Twitter, because the alternative is
giving them my email address, which seems nearly just as bad. And that way, I
don't have to type anything.

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Gormo
I always use a unique, disposable email address for every account I create,
and use KeePass for automated login. This method is just as easy, and allows
me to retain full control over my online accounts.

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RKearney
It's also a fun way to see who sells your email address to third parties.

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endeavor
Interesting survey but I think an A/B test is really what we need here. A =
traditional authentication / B = FB, Twitter, Google OAuth.

The people without FB and Twitter are late adopters and won't try your service
no matter what kind of auth you use. For the people that are concerned about
privacy, I'm not sure how big their impact will be.

~~~
Zak
I am not a late adopter. I do have accounts on Facebook and Twitter. I will
not sign up for your service if I have to use one of those accounts to do it
because I don't want either one of them becoming my identity online.

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chemmail
This should read like all other surveys:

34.5% of the people who took this survey claim they are not using
Facebook/Twitter.

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short_circut
I agree. The amount of response bias in this survey will tend to be absurd. I
suspect most people who use facebook and/or twitter won't bother with
answering this. There is no good reason to. I also suspect that people who
don't use facebook or twitter will also be indignant about the fact that they
don't use it and will make a point to vote against them. Heck even I have done
similar stuff before. From the outset this survey isn't going to work if the
methodology is not correct

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Kilimanjaro
Average IQ has gone 34.5% up too. What a coincidence.

~~~
mike-cardwell
The average IQ is, and always will be, 100. By it's very definition.

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31reasons
Thank God.

