I love that we can find information so easily and be connected to people and resources that would otherwise be near impossible…. BUT, not every statistic is actionable. In fact most statistics themselves are only a part of the “big picture”.
Could raising the minimum wage prevent thousands of suicides?
CBS News Headline By Aimee Picchi January 10, 2020
The reason I am bringing this to your attention today is because this statement is not enough information to form ANY theory… Much less, suggest it would prevent suicides.
The study, published in the the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and undertaken by Emory University researchers, found that a higher minimum wage made the biggest difference in periods of high unemployment. Every $1 increase in the baseline wage could have saved more than 27,000 lives from 1990 to 2015, the authors estimated.
CBS News By Aimee Picchi January 10, 2020
Okay, so here is the study. Yes, I am pretty sure their claims are statistically true… But the coverage lacks any other information. For example:
- Does it increase/decrease drug use?
- Does it increase/decrease education?
- Does it increase/decrease crime?
- Does it increase/decrease teen pregnancy?
My point is that much like fake news Americans seem to think these small tidbits of tunneled information are actionable. In fact I think it’s fair to say that many people consider tiny fragments of information such as this to be a “call to action”.
I see this all the time in my line of work. A customer sees a post on the Internet and immediately wants to change something on their website because of what they read. They don’t stop and think about repercussions, whether it’s true, the date (is it old), the author (are they even qualified?) and most importantly is it actually advertising dressed up as information?