Wii not collecting dust - myth debunked

[Dodece]

I think the farce has gone on long enough. I seriously thought that someone would actually point out the blatantly flawed methodology behind these numbers. Thus I could actually play along, but it is apparent now that nobody is getting whats wrong. That is just damned scary.

The Nielson group is not conducting a scientifically rigorous survey. More to the point this data is secondary to their purposes. To be a Nielson family you must meet specific guidelines. One of those specific guidelines is you must watch a certain amount of television on a weekly basis. What gets in the way of watching television why gaming of coarse. So if your viewing is going to be monitored they want to at least have it be worth their time. So if your watching less television, because your gaming you are probably not going to be included.

Now if this data was not collected secondarily, and was the principle of a study then you have to be aware that the observation does alter the outcome. Thus people can play more or less, or they could even fudge the results. After all if your asked how much you gamed this week you are inclined to have gamed some amount of time. Even if you have to fabricate time played, because you obviously have a desire to provide some data.

Basically the study is flawed either way. They artificially alter the average, because they exclude participants. They alter the outcome by polling which encourages participants to alter their behavior. The best way to gather this data is actually through subterfuge collecting the data without the persons involved knowing.

I think the best statistical study I heard about was the bait and switch poll. Where the interviewer asked a person a series of questions about one subject, and then created a situation where they talked about something conversational. A example would be someone being interviewed about politics, and then for instance the laptop freezes up. So while the interviewer reboots the computer they engage the interviewee about some unrelated subject conversationally.

Which was actually the point. Since the person being interviewed does not understand that the conversation is actually the survey. Since they do not know its a survey they do not censor their answers. They answer as they really feel, or what their perceptions are. Which is actually the best kind of data the data least likely to be contaminated.