July 3, 2003 New York Times article Opinions to Spare? Click Here The article goes on about how people are getting paid to participate in online surveys, which are becoming more economical for those looking to measure the pulse of public opinion about issues or products/services. Beyond the economics (data collection and analysis is automated, without transfer costs), the growth of online polling is also a response to the ongoing decline in response rates for other methods, like telephones and direct mail. Preserving privacy and fighting the ‘noise’ in our lives has reached a tipping point, to where it’s changing the behavior of marketers.
Driving the growth are the limitations of the old technology and the promise of the new. Everyone wants to know what’s on the consumer’s mind, but traditional survey methods have become more expensive and time-consuming. People beg off from face-to-face interviews and discard mail questionnaires as junk. Consumers often decline to respond to phone surveys as well, or pre-empt them with caller ID and other devices. (The new federal do-not-call list for telemarketing exempts telephone surveys and polls.) Moreover, cellphone numbers are not included in random surveys.
I worry about whose opinions get heard. If I use caller ID (I do) and aggressively avoid telephone surveys and polls (usually), and others like me do, too… how do our views and opinions get disseminated? How do we change the landscape, political and commercial, if we limit our willingness to share our beliefs and convictions (strongly held or otherwise)? I use “our,” “like me,” and “we” somewhat broadly, by design. I think I mean those who are technically savvy, who are making enough to cover more than the bare essentials (computers and caller ID and the like cost money… less all the time, fortunately), and who are ever more protective of their time and attention. This categorization crosses the political spectrum, which I’m grateful for… but I don’t know how evenly. I vote in every election, but so much of the representation that results from our representative democracy seems so unresponsive, even on the time-scales (years) of elections. So who continues to share their opinions in forums (unlike this blog) where aggregate results boil down to a pointer about which way to go? And, selfishly, do I agree with those opinions? Something to watch… this trend is not slowing down.
By the by, that parenthetical comment at the end of the quote above, that telephone surveys and polls are exempt from the new do-not-call list, is disappointing. Sounds like a large loophole to me.