Technology

Posts of the week: the social media myth and the problem with song lyrics

Welcome to my weekly round-up of two blogging highlights from the past week: the post that I found most interesting or enjoyable to write and the post from someone else that I found most interesting or entertaining.

A post from me…

Have you been fooled by the social media hype?

It’s a point that has been bugging me for a while, but this week I finally found the time to look up the evidence:

The worst example of this is the often made comparison about how long different technologies took to get going. It features in the film but has also been for decades a staple of those excited about the future and about change.

Radio took 38 years to get to 50m users, the internet only four years, the iPod a mere three years and so on.

Except, take a look at the evidence more closely and this apparent speeding up of technological change isn’t anything like the headline figures.

… and a post from someone else

Cognitive biases in popular songs

I was at the gym the other day – this finely chiselled physique doesn’t come naturally – and Alexandra Burke came on the TV, singing “The bad boys are always catching my eye.”

Well of course they are. Bad boys hang around on street corners and in malls where you can see them. Good boys on the other hand are working or studying and so are in offices and libraries where they’ll not catch your eye.

This is a sampling bias. It’s an elementary cognitive error.

It’s also not the only error in popular songs. Oh no.

Read the full post from Stumbling and Mumbling here.

Spotted any other great posts this week that I may have missed? Let me know in the comments.

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