I chose the results of US favourite music genres of 2014.
Rock seemed to be the most popular music genre with a lead of 7% more than the next. The second favourite was oldies with 33% of the population that voted. They found these statistics by looking at how many physical copies were sold, but later in 2016 they looked at the genre of songs people were downloading on their devices and noticed that hip hop or rap has taken the lead. I think the influencing factor is bias because they only checked the physical copies that were being sold at the time, this influenced the 0utcome of this poll because the majority of people that purchase cds are the older generation. They should’ve also analyzed the digital downloads and purchases of music because now a days thats what people use to listen to music.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/442354/music-genres-preferred-consumers-usa/
In my opinion I think that statistics play an important role in our society. We use statistics in almost everything, like media, our jobs, laws, school and sports. We base a lot of our opinions on what these statistics say. We always seem to believe these statistics even though they could be lying and fooling us.
From reading this article, I believe that statistics can improve many things in our society. For example drinking and driving, when people are aware of the statistics of how many car accidents are caused by driving under the influence of alcohol, they become more cautious with their decisions. Having real evidence and numbers to prove something is a more persuasive way to convincing someone than by just telling them.
In almost all statistics there are at least 1 influencing factor, which will affect the outcome and numbers of the statistics.
When I first read the article about the Nova Scotia Sunday Shopping Referendum I thought it was very biased, considering the people who took the survey are most likely ones who work in retail and would prefer to have Sundays off. I think that they should still be able to shop on Sundays, but all stores should only be open for a short amount of time, in case if anyone really needs to buy something. After learning about the influencing factors, I still think that it is bias and the timing of it may have an effect on the peoples answers. If the survey were to be taken a few weeks before Christmas, I think the votes would be different. In the future when interpreting survey data I will make sure to think of the influencing factors and their effects on the outcome of the survey.