Question

1. social media the pew research center surveyed a random sample of u.s. teens and adults about their use of social media. the following pictograph displays the percentage of people in various age groups who report using social media. explain how this graph is misleading.

Explanation:

In a pictograph, the visual elements (here, the figures) should scale proportionally to the data (percentages) to avoid misrepresentation. The figures' sizes (height, width) seem to increase more than the percentage differences. For example, the 19 - 29 group (89%) and 13 - 18 (81%) have a small percentage difference, but the figure for 19 - 29 looks much larger in size. Similarly, the size of the figures doesn't correspond to the percentage values linearly. This misleads viewers to perceive larger differences in usage rates than the actual percentage differences, as the area/volume of the figures (if we consider them as 2D/3D) is not proportional to the percentages.

Answer:

The pictograph is misleading because the size (e.g., height, width, or overall dimensions) of the figures representing each age group does not scale proportionally to the percentage of social media users. For instance, the visual size of the figures increases more drastically than the differences in the reported percentages, which can make viewers incorrectly perceive larger disparities in social media usage rates between age groups than what the actual percentage values (e.g., 81%, 89%, 78%, 60%, 43%) indicate.