Statistical numbers from Facebook

I don’t often log into Facebook, but when I did this morning (to promote the International Statistical Institutes new blog – “Statisticians React to the News”), I was met with an invitation to fill out a survey for the sake of helping to predict COVID-19. I’m always curious — and nervous– about such surveys. I decided to participate.

Here’s the first page, and of course I couldn’t help but be a bit statistically intrigued (if that’s a term) by the part I have highlighted.

I’m not sure how Qualtrics, Facebook, and Delphi group work together to get/create weights for survey design and/or subsequent statistical modeling, and I don’t plan to dig into it now. I really just find the language interesting, and amusing in some sense.

How is a “statistical number” different from another type of number? How do they know they are weighing my participation “properly” with their fancy statistical number? In my opinion, it’s just another example of fancy statistical-sounding wording put out there to make people feel like they should trust what’s going on. It’s so easy to provide a false sense of sophistication and as if everything is under control.

Don’t worry everyone: Facebook knows how to assign “statistical numbers” for “proper” weighting. I feel so much better about the world.