Putting things in perspective (or trying, at least)

I came across this article from CNN on the current swine flu outbreak. Trying to contextualize the possibility of an influenza pandemic, the author wrote:

"In 1968, a 'Hong Kong' flu pandemic killed about 1 million people worldwide. And in 1918, a 'Spanish' flu pandemic killed as many as 100 million people. Putting those figures into perspective about 36,000 people die from flu-related symptoms each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

The first two numbers are world-wide totals, while the third figure is US-specific. Since the US has roughly 5% of the world's population, the yearly world death toll from the seasonal flu would be about 750,000. That would put it close to the 1968 Hong Kong flu and far below the Spanish flu. If you read the paragraph quickly, however you come away with the impression that the 1968 pandemic was significantly worse than the average flu season, while the 1918 pandemic was exponentially worse; in reality, only the latter is true.

Clearly, not all pandemics are equal, ranging from catastrophic to roughly equivalent to a seasonal flu. Either way, if you're going to provide context, it's good to put everything on the same scale.

What, me worry?

Most economists--most people, in fact-- think that one of the roles of government is to provide public goods, such as infrastructure, defense and public health provisioning. So of all the things in the stimulus to criticize, these should have been deemed acceptable to Republicans (via Paul Krugman):

"So Bobby Jindal makes fun of 'volcano monitoring', and soon afterwards Mt. Redoubt erupts. Susan Collins makes sure that funds for pandemic protection are stripped from the stimulus bill, and the swine quickly attack."

While Europe and East Asia are well equipped to manufacture vaccines in the event of a flu outbreak, the US is behind the curve--there's only one factory in the entire country capable of production. No, government is not always the answer; but sometimes it is.

I knew it all along!

Virtually every American college student has played "beer pong" or one of its many variants. The marriage of inebriation, boredom and impaired hand-eye coordination was seemingly made in Heaven. But can beer pong kill? No, but it can make you sick.

If you miss one of your opponents' cups, the ball falls on the floor and rolls behind a couch. And don't give me that nonsense about cleaning the ball in the cup of water; it's a cesspool!

Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies

As promised, here are the links to the Harvard study on the risks faced by minors on the internet. The executive summary is here and the full study is here.

Page 75 of the full study PDF discusses the evidence regarding sexual solicitation online.

Safer than we thought

As I've written recently, many parents and child advocates view social networking sites as online swamps full of lurking sexual predators, kind of like this:



But a new study from researchers at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society suggests that may be more the product of media hype and parental fears than reality. According to the New York Times (who received a draft version of the report due out tomorrow*):

"The report criticized previous findings that one in five or one in seven minors are sexually propositioned online, saying that in a strong majority of those situations, a child’s peers are responsible for the proposition, which typically amounts to an act of harassment or teasing."

Further, the authors of the study note that in most cases of online sexual predation, "teenagers are typically willing participants and are at risk in other ways (with poor home environments, depression or substance abuse, for example)."

It's doubtful that a study like this will have much impact in the psyche of parents. The dangers of online behavior have been greatly exaggerated for years and empirical evidence is usually overwhelmed by an anecdote or 10 minutes of "To Catch a Predator". But the research supports the conclusion that while the internet provides a new medium for social interaction, people are still people. As John Cardillo--chief executive of Sentinel Tech Holding, which maintains a sex offender database and was a member of the task force--is quoted saying:

“Social networks are very much like real-world communities that are comprised mostly of good people who are there for the right reasons.”

*I'll be sure to post the link as soon as the study is available online.

This just in: 18 year olds talk about sex!

If you want to frighten parents and educators, mention "MySpace". The social networking site has become public enemy number one in the fight against teenage vice. Now, even the medical community is getting involved. According to a study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, "54 percent of teens talk about behaviors such as sex, alcohol use, and violence on the social networking giant MySpace".

Actually, that quote is a bit misleading. A few paragraphs down, we find out:

The study looked at MySpace profiles of 500 people who identified themselves as 18-year-old males and females in the United States. References to risky behaviors included both words and photos, the authors said.

So this means that 54% of 18-year-olds on MySpace reference sex or drugs (there's no mention of "rock-n-roll" in the study) in their profiles. Let's put aside for a moment the fact that 18-year-olds are legal adults. Studies of the sexual behavior of Ameircan teens reveal that 58% of 18-year-olds in this country have had sex. If you believe these statistics, MySpace users are actually less likely to have sex than the general population.

You may be wondering why anyone would be interested in this (I know I was). Accodring to one of the authors:

Even if teens have not actually engaged in risky behaviors but merely brag about them online, this can still affect their future behavior, said study co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital.

Those who lie about the behaviors to show off may receive positive feedback from others -- comments such as "that's great" or "I do the same thing" -- that encourage them to actually try out the behaviors, he said.

So the danger here is not MySpace, per se, but rather peer pressure--pressure that results from essentially any contact with peers.  That means that if MySpace is dangerous, then so are cell phones, or any other communication device.  If MySpace is dangerous, so is talking.

Interestingly, one of the researchers makes this point, though it is buried in the article:

"It's really not that MySpace is bad or good. I think the lesson is that it's a tool, and how you use it determines the kinds of outcome you're going to get," Moreno said.

Technology changes, but people typically stay the same.  Teenagers--in this case, young adults--think about, and talk about, sex.  It's easier to see that now that social networking sites have gained popularity.  But just because it's more apparent, doesn't mean it's new.  

Vote and Die

Back in 2004, Steven Landsburg explained why many economists don't bother to vote:

Your individual vote will never matter unless the election in your state is within one vote of a dead-even tie. (And even then, it will matter only if your state tips the balance in the electoral college.) What are the odds of that? Well, let's suppose you live in Florida and that Florida's 6 million voters are statistically evenly divided—meaning that each of them has (as far as you know) exactly a 50/50 chance of voting for either Bush or Kerry—the statistical equivalent of a coin toss. Then the probability you'll break a tie is equal to the probability that exactly 3 million out of 6 million tosses will turn up heads. That's about 1 in 3,100—roughly the same as the probability you'll be murdered by your mother.

Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) provides a similar explanation. Many people retort, "if everyone thought that way, then no one would vote". But, of course, many people do vote. The real question is, given the limited impact of any one vote, how seriously (or "rationally") do people take this opportunity? Bryan Caplan has many interesting thoughts on this issue.

But now voting-agnostics have another line of argument: voting can kill. According to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

On the eight election Tuesdays, a total of 1,265 people -- drivers, passengers or pedestrians -- were killed during the hours that polls were open, equivalent to 158 per day or 13 per hour. On the 16 Tuesdays a week before and a week after election day, 2,152 people were killed in the same time span -- equivalent to 134 per day or 11 per hour.

Seems like Diddy may have gotten this wrong: