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"With an average age just shy of 16, the respondents to this poll were nearly all born in a post-iPhone world." Okay, it's 2023 [1], the iPhone came out in 200
by simbolit 3y ago
"With an average age just shy of 16, the respondents to this poll were nearly all born in a post-iPhone world."
Okay, it's 2023 [1], the iPhone came out in 2007 [2], that is 16 years [3] ago. A person born in the post-iPhone world is thus 16 years or younger[4]. While the average usually refers to the arithmetic mean and not the median [5], it is good statistical practice to prune extreme outliers [6], and thus have the mean and median relatively close together.
Given all this, it seems to me quite likely about half of the poll respondents were "born in a post-iPhone world." Last time I checked, 'about half' and 'nearly all' are kinda different.
why are there such super-sloppy mistakes in "nearly all" (technical meaning) articles?
(1) https://www.timeanddate.com/ https://www.timeanddate.com/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone
(3) https://www.calculator.com/ https://www.calculator.com/
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier
- itishappy 3y agoI bet it's not meant quite that literally, as most people aren't given a smartphone at birth. I believe the intent is that iPhones were available as their first phone. Your point still stands; I think I'd have preferred the phrasing "born into a post-iPhone world."
- simbolit 3y ago"came of age in a post-iPhone world" "grew up in a post-iPhone world" "learned to communicate in a post-iPhone world" All of these were valid options for the author, and all of them would support the "nearly all" part of the claim, yet the author used "born". If you don't mean shit, don't say shit.