Pro tip: That viral '90% of people fail this test' is usually garbage stats

I used to reshare those dumb '90% fail' puzzles on Facebook until a buddy who works in survey design ripped me a new one. He pointed out the sample size is never listed and they cherry pick the hardest version to make you feel smart. Now I check the source before I even click share. Last one I saw claimed 95% fail but the original post had 200 responses from a single high school class. Has anyone else dug into the numbers behind these things and found the real fail rate?

3 comments

3 Comments

quinn1617d ago

Got a buddy who shared one of those "only 1% can solve this" math problems and a professor friend of his actually found the original study was just a blog post from some dude's personal site.

marybutler7d ago

Hey @quinn161, did you ever try tracking down the source yourself? That happened to me once with a "viral puzzle" about a hotel bill, turned out it was just a guy's side project from 2004. My friend who's a math teacher actually found it by searching the exact claim in quotes on google, it popped up on some random forum. After that, I started reverse image searching those puzzles too, saved me a ton of time. It's wild how often stuff like that goes viral without anyone checking the source lol.

simon_carr7d ago

My buddy found a viral puzzle was just a guy's 2005 blog post.