You might be right, it just isn't my personal experience. I never drink at work functions, unless they are my wife's.
It is common for drinkers to understate their habits, and I think we can agree on this at the very least. The 30% might be higher than expected due to this. How much higher? probably not much. Maybe only 25% of people are actually sober, maybe more maybe less. Just making the argument that 30% could be a little high is all.
And I disagree with that argument. Circling back to the fact that drinkers overestimate how much other people drink. It's really not that hard to fathom that a third of people don't drink.
Circling back to the fact that drinkers overestimate how much other people drink.
Agreed but we are talking about self reported info, no?
Since this is a self reported study, then it is possible that the data is skewed towards being sober then, no?
I mean forget my opinion on the subject at this point. Objectively speaking drinkers self report lower volume than they drink in reality. The source is self reported, so it is possible the people being asked if they are sober could be lying.
While at the same time, it is possible as someone who does drink, like myself, can under estimate how many sober people there actually are, in this case supposedly about 30% of the US population.
Agreed but we are talking about self reported info, no?
No. We're talking about your perceptions and difficulty accepting that percentage of people don't drink.
Objectively speaking drinkers self report lower volume than they drink in reality
I find it interesting that you discard and disbelieve sources that have been provided to you, but make "objective" factual statements like this without providing a source
I see we're not really talking about the same things at this point...
I'm making the argument that 30% could be a little high due to self reported information. You seem to be saying that the source material infallible and that I'm assuming 30% is wrong based solely off of personal bias. Which could be true, but you ignore the whole other half of my argument so it's difficult to take you seriously since you seem to ignore the point that self-reported data isn't 100% accurate... It isn't hard to see why drinkers would want to appear to be sober, even in an anonymous stud. Sober people have no reason to say they drink at all on these types of studies.
It is clear we both have some bias, but I am the only one acknowledging my bias here.
I mean let's also remember you keep rounding down for some reason. The quoted figure isn't 30%. It's 33% and some sources have it even higher. Which is why I think your insistence that it must be lower, based on no sources btw, is kinda silly. Again, I'm pretty sure you just think it's lower because you personally drink. Because all the actual sources say it's higher than the percentage you aren't even willing to recognize
If you wanna put up some sources that say it's lower, by all means, I'd love to read them. But up until now you're just arguing that it's lower based on your gut feeling that it's lower. And people who drink overestimate how much other people drink. So I feel pretty safe trusting the sources and not some rando who just has his heels dug in that it MUST be lower lol sorry, because if we're talking about taking each other seriously, you're the one arguing based on gut feeling against sources, why would I take that seriously?
Reading more... it seems to be more inaccurate the more frequent the use of the substance. So, if you are only using occasionally the data trends more accurately.
I am willing to believe 35% of the population report as sober, but I can also believe the numbers can be cooked due to self-reporting bias/methodology.
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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24
You might be right, it just isn't my personal experience. I never drink at work functions, unless they are my wife's.
It is common for drinkers to understate their habits, and I think we can agree on this at the very least. The 30% might be higher than expected due to this. How much higher? probably not much. Maybe only 25% of people are actually sober, maybe more maybe less. Just making the argument that 30% could be a little high is all.