volinbham
VN GURU
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(utvolpj @ Aug 7 said:How come I never get polled? Oh yeah, they skip the whole cellphone market. Oh well, some Americans are idiots.
Could work the other way around. It could be too expensive to maintain regular phone service AND a cell phone plan, so you just dump the regular service. I know plenty of people who just have cells because regular phones are cost-prohibitive, cell phones are getting cheaper, and they are far more useful.(therealUT @ Aug 7 said:You have just turned a light bulb on in my mind. I know many well to do people that now rely solely on their cell phones. They have canceled their land line service.
I would hypothesize that cell phones are not as widely used in less afluent households. Therefore, they are more likely to have land lines, hence, they are more likely to be polled. Just a theory...
(milohimself @ Aug 7 said:Could work the other way around. It could be too expensive to maintain regular phone service AND a cell phone plan, so you just dump the regular service. I know plenty of people who just have cells because regular phones are cost-prohibitive, cell phones are getting cheaper, and they are far more useful.
(volinbham @ Aug 7 said:Random digit dialing techniques for sampling can get cellphones - most polling services are likely to use some type of random sampling technique including RDD. They typically would choose some area codes and prefixes then let the computer crank out the last 4 digits. I assume that if a sizable portion of the population has cell only set-ups, the polling firms would take that into account.
(utvolpj @ Aug 8 said:Actually I have read many reports to the contrary. I will see if I can dig them up. Basically it has been stated that the polls skip a large, younger, more mobile segment of the population and the polls are getting skewed because of it.
Federal law doesn't allow researchers to call cell phones with an autodialer, a popular method for quickly reaching random samples for polls and surveys.
But survey researchers plan to start calling cell phone users manually, making those calls on weekends. They want to develop a plan of reimbursement for respondents' time or lost cell phone minutes and come up with a code of ethics and safety so research calls don't endanger cell phone users involved in activities like driving.
(VolinArizona @ Aug 8 said:Here's the thing: those 36% of people know as much as YOU do about 9/11, which means YOU don't know for sure if the government was involved or not.
(VolinArizona @ Aug 8 said:No, it's not. I'm one of the 64% who believe the US wasn't involved. But you can never KNOW for a FACT on this.
Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."
The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans speculate that secretly planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the real reason the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.
(VolinArizona @ Aug 8 said:Here's the thing: those 36% of people know as much as YOU do about 9/11, which means YOU don't know for sure if the government was involved or not.
(VolinArizona @ Aug 8 said:No, it's not. I'm one of the 64% who believe the US wasn't involved. But you can never KNOW for a FACT on this.
(rwemyss @ Aug 8 said:There's a large number of things that can't be proven or disproven beyond a shadow of a doubt (factually). However, there is a certain point where corroborating evidence or lack there of would allow you to approximate it as a fact.