Monday, 22 March 2010

Results I don't believe [updated]

Kiwis almost never look for pornography on the web, a survey partly conducted by AUT University has found.

The survey of 1250 people in 30 countries showed that fewer than 5 per cent of Kiwis admit using the internet for pornography daily. More than 80 per cent said they never looked for sexual content on the web.
1250 people in 30 countries? 42 respondents per country if it's not population weighted; maybe a dozen Kiwis answered the survey if it was? Or do they mean 1250 people in each of 30 countries. [DPF, comments, confirms 1250 per country, phew!]

Alexa is a bit more forthcoming: 6 of the top 100 sites visited by New Zealanders are porn. #s 46, 64, 65, 66, 73, and 81, at least judging by titles or tags that are obvious in the Alexa headings. If folks are more likely to block tracking toolbars like Alexa when surfing that kind of content, then these results understate things. The one ranked #46 here is ranked #54 globally.

Or maybe the 5% in the survey really downloads a whole lot of content. But I doubt it.

Who runs surveys of 1250 people across 30 countries? The margins of error have to be huge!

2 comments:

  1. The 1250 responses were from NZ. Similiar surveys were done in 29 other countries to allow comparisons.

    And yes I doubt the porn stat also.

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  2. Thanks, have updated. It's bloody weird though. I can understand reticence and underreporting in surveys on anything like number of sexual partners, drug use, pornography use, and so on - anywhere there's social disapprobation. But surveys on Kiwis consistently put our women as having some of the highest numbers of partners. So why the underreporting only on porn? Very odd.

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