> In the first five years of the smartphone era, the proportion of Americans who said internet use interfered with their family time nearly tripled, from 11 per

> In the first five years of the smartphone era, the proportion of Americans who said internet use interfered with their family time nearly tripled, from 11 per cent to 28 per cent. It is a pet peeve of mine when these kinds of casual exaggerations enter into a statistic. An increase by a factor of ~2.55 is quite far from a factor of 3. I could argue the global population has nearly tripled since 1959 [1]. This is a rounding of similar proportions, which would lead you to believe there are 9 billion people on Earth rather than 7.6 billion. That sleight of hand incurrs an error of 1.4 billion people. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/world-population-to-hit-milestone-with-birth-of-7-billionth-person https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/world-population-to-hit-mi...