DIY investigations
So, the Herald has a story headlined Men’s DIY skills ‘dying out’ – study. Here’s the first three paragraphs
Men are no longer able to carry out traditional DIY – with most now opting to call in tradesmen, research shows.
Most men cannot change a tyre, while only half can wire a plug and just one in five are able to fix a dripping tap.
Three in five men would need to call in a plumber to unblock a toilet, while only a third feel confident about putting together flat-pack furniture.
You might think this raises some questions. For example:
- Is there any information in the story suggesting the numbers are reliable? (not really)
- Do they have comparable data from the past to support the ‘dying out’, ‘no longer able’ and so on? (no)
- Isn’t this whole gendered housework thing mildly offensive and about five decades out of date? (yes)
- Hasn’t it been a cliche since flat-pack furniture was invented that most people don’t feel confident assembling it? (yes)
A question that might not spring immediately to mind: “What country are these numbers from?”
The stock photo isn’t much use. It shows a man carrying a plank while smiling — maybe one of the other dying skills? Google Image Search finds a vendor who has it tagged as Calgary, Alberta (Canada).
However, there are two clues in the text I’ve quoted. The first clue is that there aren’t any specifically NZ journalistic cliches — it’s hard to imagine a Kiwi writing this sort of crap without referencing, say, number 8 wire.
The second clue is more subtle: “only half can wire a plug”. Until 1992, appliances in the UK were often sold without plugs attached, and wiring a plug was a more important household skill than in the rest of the world.
Reading on, the fourth paragraph confirms that this is a UK story. It’s from the Daily Mail and it exists to advertise a UK men’s clothing company. If you found the story annoying, I would encourage you not to investigate their blog further.
A modest proposal: it appears that news sites have to publish a certain number of these surveys. Maybe they could trim out the name of the sponsoring company, and just provide it in a link for readers who really cared? Then the story could be assessed on its true news (or perhaps entertainment) value.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
In Year 11/Fourth Form science we were taught to wire a plug as part of the curriculum. Nowadays I think it’s only electricians who are allowed to wire a plug.
8 years ago
My mother has a related hypothesis. She thinks that people now do more DIY things because of the internet. You can just look up how to fix a leaky faucet in a way that was not possible in 20 years ago.
8 years ago