Can we really believe what we read in surveys? It’s hard to know. It all depends on who took the surveys and who assessed them and processed the information. It depends on how many people were asked and where they lived and who they were. The results of any survey can be easily skewed, though we always hope that they are trustworthy.
A survey taker could call up ten doctors and ask them a question and then truthfully say, “9 out of 10 doctors surveyed prefer whatchamajig pain reliever.” He could also choose not to use some of the data if he found a few that didn’t like it. He could ask only doctors in a particular neighborhood, or doctors who had all been invited to attend a banquet paid for by whatchamajig pain reliever – of course they would be in the mood to prefer it.
The study also depends on the people giving the answers. Ask a group of students if they have ever tried drugs – when their parents are listening, and you will probably not get all of them to tell the truth. Ask when they are positive they will not be quoted, and it might be different. It’s really quite hard to tell.
In Billings, a study among high school students shows that drinking alcohol has gone down in the past two years. Teens who have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days went down from 43% to 38%, for instance. Trying smoking was down from 67% to 44% ten years ago. But the percentage of junior high students being bullied went up from 38% to 50%.
Now, at the risk of sounding skeptical, it seems like students would be more likely to admit to having been bullied than to having tried alcohol or cigarettes or drugs. Still, one can hope that students may give honest answers and that a large number of them will be asked so that the survey might truly reflect the differences that are taking place in the community. It would certainly be an encouragement to those who are educating the kids.
