- Is my head cut off. That's fine.
I'll just slouch.
Thank you to KiwiCo for sponsoring this video.
Visit kiwico.com/answerinprogress
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Hello? Okay.
Take a look at this graph.
If I were to tell you this graph represents
the number of horror movie releases per year,
according to IMDb,
what would you think?
Maybe you would notice this increasing trend over time.
Maybe you would wonder what caused these spikes,
but more than anything else,
you would see that the number of horror movies made
increased dramatically around the year 2000.
And you being a pretty smart and curious person
may immediately start to wonder, why?
What happened around the turn of the millennium
that just caused this endless spooky season.
And I say all of this,
because that is exactly what I was wondering
when I was looking at this data while making my last video.
The moment I plotted this data, I was like, Whoa.
I went on to Slack and told Taha and Melissa,
look at how spooky the 2000's are.
But then I was like,
wait a second, am I reading graphs wrong?
And then I deleted the post in shame.
Because after four years and an expensive piece of paper
telling the world, I studied numbers,
I'm still reading graphs wrong.
And there's a strong chance
that you might be doing the same.
In fact, some studies show that anywhere
from 33 to 60% of the population is struggling with
the skills required to read graphs.
And that would be fine if it was like advanced calculus.
Despite what your math teacher might say,
nobody's out here calculating integrals in their daily life,
but that's not true for graphs.
Like six of the seven most visited stories
in The Washington Post'S history have been graphics.
And it's pretty obvious why?
Because a good graph can unlock a lot of information
that might otherwise be trapped
in confusing and unappealing text.
But that's only true if you're reading graphs right.
So how do you do that?
(lock opening)
(doors sliding)
(sanitizer dispensing)
(light background music)
- [Attendant] Hey you.
- [Instructor] Good how are you.
- [Attendant] Good, (indistinct) today.
- [Instructor] No, thank you.
- [Attendant] Enjoy.
- [Instructor] Thank you so much.
- [Attendant] Take care.
(book slamming)
- Did not think about how this background and this book
are like the same color.
Can you see it?
Can you, can you
Listen, I was gonna do a whole bit change clothes
act like I just bought this book, but I didn't.
I got this a few weeks ago.
It's just been sitting on my bedside table
for the past while.
Anyway, I don't think that the right move is
to get everybody to watch crash course on graph reading.
'Cause I don't think that'll work.
However, I do think we could all do better
to recognize the common pitfalls that can get anyone.
Luckily, many of them are neatly outlined in this book.
How Charts Lie by Alberto Cairo.
Wait a second, wait a second.
Oh, that's called contrast.
Anyway, a lot of those common pitfalls
are neatly outlined in this book, How Charts Lie.
It's a really easy read with some great examples.
Also because it's about data visualization,
there are pictures.
But in case graph illiteracy isn't your only problem
and you can't read books, here's the gist.
A graph has five of misleading you,
poor design,
dubious data,
insufficient data,
concealing uncertainty
and suggesting misleading patterns.
Designing graphs is hard.
Every decision from colors to axes, to labels,
they all affect the story the graph tells
and how clearly it tells it.
Like I've not only made mistakes, reading graphs
I've also made plenty of mistakes, designing them.
Not every poorly designed graph you see out there
is out of malice.
Sometimes it's just hard.
But a good design needs to strike a balance between
simplicity and accuracy.
As a reader, you need to make sure
that the design choices compliment the data
rather than exaggerate.
But there isn't really a point in complimenting the data,
if the data is bad or dubiously sourced.
If a graph doesn't have a known source,
it's just the picture.
To avoid falling for bad data
you need to make sure that the data source exists
and that it's also credible.
And if it is, you should also make sure
that the data and the graph are telling the same story.
That means making sure that
the graph isn't cherry picking statistics
or burying an important point
in a forest of irrelevant numbers.
And I'm saying numbers, not facts for a reason,
because I think that there is
this fundamental misunderstanding of science, studies,
statistics and graphs in that some people believe
that they present these undeniable truths.
That isn't the case.
All of science is about testing a hypothesis.
Some are rigorously tested with consistent results.
Others are garbage,
but regardless there is always some level of uncertainty.
So you need to entertain the fact that with any graph,
there's some possibility that the numbers in it,
aren't true.
Finally, a graph can suggest misleading patterns
because ultimately while a graph can illustrate data
and inspire new meaningful questions,
it can also pretty quickly mislead us into seeing things
that aren't there.
In this book, let me, let me find the quote.
(pages flipping)
(rhythmically humming)
There we go, found it.
"Don't read too much into a chart,
particularly if you're reading what you'd like to read."
I did that.
That is where I seriously bovied it with that graph
I showed you at the beginning.
Because I was making a video about horror movies
and how our personal fears might intersect with them.
And I saw this graph and I know about some things
that happened around the year 2000.
You probably do too.
That I wanted to see and be like, Oh,
that is a sign that horror movies are a direct reflection,
a direct result of our own human fears.
And so after the year 2000, when certain things went down,
we started making more horror.
And I got so excited and enticed by that idea that I didn't
really stop to consider other possibilities.
Because if alongside those horror movie releases,
you also plot out all movie releases,
you see this.
There was just more movies being made.
There was nothing special about horror movies.
I was just wrong.
I was just flat out wrong and it's embarrassing.
Like, I don't know it just made me uncomfortable.
Because I consider myself a pretty fact-based person.
And the idea that I was so able
to quickly warp my sense of reality
to fit a narrative I believed in,
that's messed up.
There's a metaphor in there.
It's probably not even a metaphor.
You got it, you get what I'm trying to say.
It's not just about graphs.
However, I think it serves as this nice reminder
that graph literacy
is just like any other source of literacy.
It's a skill, one that we can both build on
to become better, more informed people.
Anyway, that got weirdly deep,
speaking of literature,
now I'm just wondering if graphs are language,
can you write graph fan fiction?
That's a thought.
Stop, that's embarrassing.
Leave your answers in the comments below.
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