Awkward Question Time! (Genuine Survey, But...)

I have been for quite some years a guinea-pig in the English National Survey of Ageing (ELSA).

Every couple of years or so they invite you to have an interview, by someone who visits you at home and asks lots of questions about lots of things about daily life - how well you manage, use of transport, a memory-test, and the rest.

Now and then it adds an extra. Once, a short, simple medical. On another occasion, using a form you completed yourself and put in an envelope you then sealed, a survey of the sex-lives of the over-60s! Most recently an activity-monitor survey using one of those sensors you wear like a watch.

Fine so far.

Latest extra one (and they are all voluntary, you can decline), a survey called the ELSA 50+ Memory & Thinking Study. Again by home visit, and I am awaiting the cal to arrange an appointment.

Fine so far.....

..... now the awkward bit.

Or more accurately, a well-meant idea but not exactly workable and statistically weak.

For it asks if you can nominate a relative or friend they can also interview, asking about your own daily life and what if any change he or she has noticed in you over the last ten years!

I thought hard and realised the only one who might is my sister, who lives not far way. She does not want to take part but anyway pointed out very reasonably that she would not know my daily life in any useful detail, still less be able to remember my cognitive abilities from a decade ago!

Friends? I have many - but all members of my model-engineering and other clubs. I see some at best weekly, most only irregularly and a goodly number only a couple of times a year - and they'd be even less knowledgable. They know me really only as a fellow club member.

I suppose this aspect of the survey will work if the friend or relative is very close, maybe living in the same house. Otherwise, one has to wonder if the designers really thought it through!

.

I think that last line sums it up nicely, Nigel

I know from experience that it is very difficult to successfully design such surveys … but I also know from observation that some of the ‘designers’ don’t have much idea !

Anything like this obviously needs testing before it is let out into the wild.

MichaelG.

A recent survey commented on how many men had no one they could or would really call a close friend, many were happy in their own company and with doing a relatively solo hobby, close to 20%. Maybe this is a sneaky way of double checking that data.

Martin C

Edited By Martin Connelly on 19/07/2023 22:05:51

What could possibly be of any interest about the sex-lives of the over-60s? And has the strap-on sensor got anything to do with this subject?

The mind boggles...

Not having even one friend, preferably many, whom you see several times a week is one of the things that has been getting a lot of attention since lockdown.
Church, Men's Shed, U3A, walking groups, etc all provide opportunities but the problem is getting the hard core loners to get started. Our weekly food bank is the only outside contact point for at least two of the attendees.

At the ME club we notice people who don't make it to the monthly meetings. One question is how to continue to support long term members who can no longer make it to any activity and are reluctant to pay the subscription when they don't effectively get much apart from the emailed newsletter.
What does your club do at that point?

"What could possibly be of any interest about the sex-lives of the over-60s? And has the strap-on sensor got anything to do with this subject?"

Depends where they strap it.

Regards Ian.

I have no idea why the sexual activity survey, apart perhaps from useful in some way in genito-urinary medicine.

The sensor was worn on the wrist! This is a model-engineering forum not Facebook!

A good question, about members not often seen; and it applies to any club not just model-engineering.

Really, there is not much the club can do; though as far as I have experienced so far over many years, all the absences by deteriorating health have been flagged by the members themselves, or perhaps spouse; and all deaths by relatives.

My caving-clubs are affiliated indirectly to the British Caving Association and members can obtain third-party insurance directly from BCA by joining that as well or via the club. Your still pay the BCA subscription and insurance, at the same rate. However, members who have ceased active caving can still belong at a reduced rate to reflect much lower insurance; but still paying for the printed club magazines and towards upkeep of the club's physical assets.

I don't know if any model-engineering societies have a parallel arrangement. Mine doesn't, but the Club insurance covers only club activities and you need pay for property and third-party insurance for private use, yourself. Expensive it is too.

However that only accounts for the individual's continued existence.

It misses the point I raised.

You can be at your club weekly, whatever its interest and whatever your level of participation, but that still does not mean anyone else can necessarily be relied on to give accurate answers about your daily life outside of it, let alone your state of mind a decade previously.

That is the problem of the auxiliary part of the survey, not whether you are in this world or the next.

When I was in the Birmingham Society many years ago they had a much cheaper "Country" membership-class which supplied it's members with the newsletter and (IIRC) free entry to open-days, but no other membership benefits. This was mainly used by long-term members who had moved away but wanted to keep in touch.

I had the same problem, declined to take part in that section. Apparently, my wife doesn't qualify!

Edited By Stephen Follows on 22/07/2023 15:20:39

Sometimes, surveys are designed, either merely to gather information (To keep the statisticians in a job ) or to support whatever point of view the recipent wishes to promote.

Not unknown for surveys to be compilled by folk who are very intelligent, but have little knowledge of human nature, (Ditto parliamentary draughtsmen and many politicians ).

The answer to "Why do they want to know this?" may be quite revealing.

The seled envelope part is probably to gather marketing information for the sellers of Viagra and similar products.

The information iwill probably be sold on. Quite lucrative, I believe.

My wife supports more charities than i do, but nothing like the number who ask her for donations!

Howard.

There's no evidence that the ELSA data is used for any commercial purposes linked to individuals; and the rubric does say what it's for! It is looking at trends in populations and needs at population level, not individual shopping habits. In fact it does not even ask those, but does ask about things like using public transport.

No need thanks to social-media, "smart"-'phones, supermarket "loyalty" cards, banks and insurance companies. shopping on-line for day-to-day goods, clothes and food. The big ad agencies who are the real clients of Facebook etc are unlikely to even notice our mail-ordering 3 end-mills and a two-foot length of brass bar; but the above channels are far more direct and relevant to them.

Besides, as far as I recall the questions don't ask about your identity or anything, and though it was nearly ten years ago I don't think you put your name on the sexual activity form. Age maybe, but that was the basic question anyway.

As it happens I've still to hear from the surveyors.

Do you ever get the impression that you're being watched, or are you just paranoid?

I suppose truly anonymous mass data collection is OK. What is worrying is that idiots or ideologists like politicians then make decisions based on a faulty understanding, or unreasonable selection, of the data. Most mass data collection, however, is far from anonymous - even though you might think you can hide from prying eyes.

No I do not have that impression, but I do agree that politicians can and often do decide on poorly selected or understood data. The data themselves that are used by Governmental agencies and politicians are probably fine, collected and analysed properly. As you say, it's what's done with them that counts!.

Just a few minutes ago (a little before 9 am here), on BBC Radio Four's Today programme, an item on "smart"-'phones mentioned many ways we leave trails. They included so-called "smart" loudspeakers and even devices like the "Fitbit",

Though to be fair the latter was not accused of being an eavesdropper. It is not. It simply records when you are active or at rest, but not what you are doing or where. In one criminal case the accused was proven by his Fitbit to have active when he had claimed to have been in bed at home, supporting other evidence against him!

The massive collecting and trading of personal data are almost all commercial, but so many people walk straight into it by thinking everything has to be on-line all day and night, that they need a "smart-speaker", umpteen-G 'phone and wallet-full of shop cards, that they need plaster their lives across Facebook; and above all, have little or no sense of privacy or security.

We are being pushed relentlessly that way by the banks, supermarkets and some of the public services cramping our choices of how we use them; but I try to encourage them as little as possible. I certainly do not own a "smart"-'phone and 'speaker, and accounts on Twitter, Facebook and their ilk.

Nigel - my apologies. I now realise that my question would have appeared rude, had you thought it was aimed at you. It wasn't - it was semi-rhetorical, and aimed at the forum's readers in general. I agree with your comments above.

Thank you - I'd not taken it personally!

Spotting the thread in the list reminds me: I've not yet heard anything about arranging an appointment. Must send them a message.