Consumer tech research often misleads

Surveys can be PR in disguise

Here’s a tip from an old newspaper hand: Don’t take the stories you read about consumer technology surveys seriously.

They rarely contain real news or facts. Most are just second-rate marketing campaigns dressed up as information. The idea is to get the company who sponsored the "research" into the news.

Statistical pitfalls: small samples, big claims

University of Auckland biostatistics professor Thomas Lumley rightly points out his misgivings about a New Zealand Herald story: “Young Kiwis among most savvy web users” .

As he says, the story is based on a survey of 4400 respondents in 11 countries. Even if the sample is completely random – that’s unlikely – the margin of error for comparing any two countries is 7 percent.

Tech firms’ favorite sales strategy: fear and noise

So when the people behind the survey use their results to reach conclusions about the relative habits of web users in various countries they are drawing a long bow.

It was ever thus.

I’ve written about technology for 32 years. In that time I’ve seen hundreds of spurious surveys sent out by public relations companies in a blatant attempt to get their clients into the news pages.

A journalist’s lesson: skepticism matters

The worst offenders are security software companies wanting to whip up paranoia to sell their latest snake oil. They'll add a new feature or release a new product along with a wealth of "research" showing just how necessary the product is.

Except it isn't and the research is either not real or just spurious.

To be fair, it isn’t just security software companies, or just technology companies. You’ll find all kinds of rubbish in the newspaper masquerading as research.

Just remember to take this stuff with a pinch of salt.