2008 Woodie Awards
Thinking Dangerously: Lies, damned lies, and statistics
How do we define "drinking responsibly"?
Kitty Campbell
Issue date: 10/31/06 Section: Opinions
Did you know three quarters of UNCG students only have 0-4 drinks when they go out?
SPARC (Spartans to Prevent Alcohol Related Consequences) wants you to know this statistic. It's advertised on Blackboard as well as on mouse pads in the computer labs. They're offering this stat to show how great it is that so many students have four or fewer drinks when they go out. But using this stat to show what responsible drinkers UNCG students are is like saying three quarters of us are responsible drivers because we've had 0-4 car accidents in the past year.
In case you missed it in kindergarten, four is a lot more than zero. And when it comes to alcohol, four drinks is a hell of a lot more than none. It's definitely enough to prevent you from driving yourself home (if you're smart), it's enough to make you say things you may regret later, and it's enough to give you a day-long headache the next day. So why, exactly, is four drinks the upper limit SPARC has set for a "responsible" number of drinks?
That's not the only thing I take issue with here. The Blackboard ad containing this statistic says, "Three quarters...have 0-4 drinks when they go out." But how often do those surveyed go out? Twice a month? Once a week? Three times a week? Because eight drinks in a month is much less than twelve drinks in a week. Lumping everyone who has four or fewer drinks per night out together is misleading when there's likely a large discrepancy in how many nights out they all have. And is this counting how many drinks those people have while at home? I know that's where I do most of my drinking - would I just leave those drinks out of my count?
SPARC's goal, according to their website, is, "To implement and evaluate a comprehensive intervention that will affect environmental changes on the campus and in the community and reduce the incidence of alcohol related problems among college students." I'm not sure what they mean by "intervention" and "environmental changes," but their goal is nevertheless admirable. They want students to drink responsibly, and that's good. But it seems to me that they're trying to make less-than-desirable statistics work in their favor to "prove" that most students already have responsible drinking habits, thus encouraging that lagging one-quarter to get with the times and pass over that fifth drink.
SPARC (Spartans to Prevent Alcohol Related Consequences) wants you to know this statistic. It's advertised on Blackboard as well as on mouse pads in the computer labs. They're offering this stat to show how great it is that so many students have four or fewer drinks when they go out. But using this stat to show what responsible drinkers UNCG students are is like saying three quarters of us are responsible drivers because we've had 0-4 car accidents in the past year.
In case you missed it in kindergarten, four is a lot more than zero. And when it comes to alcohol, four drinks is a hell of a lot more than none. It's definitely enough to prevent you from driving yourself home (if you're smart), it's enough to make you say things you may regret later, and it's enough to give you a day-long headache the next day. So why, exactly, is four drinks the upper limit SPARC has set for a "responsible" number of drinks?
That's not the only thing I take issue with here. The Blackboard ad containing this statistic says, "Three quarters...have 0-4 drinks when they go out." But how often do those surveyed go out? Twice a month? Once a week? Three times a week? Because eight drinks in a month is much less than twelve drinks in a week. Lumping everyone who has four or fewer drinks per night out together is misleading when there's likely a large discrepancy in how many nights out they all have. And is this counting how many drinks those people have while at home? I know that's where I do most of my drinking - would I just leave those drinks out of my count?
SPARC's goal, according to their website, is, "To implement and evaluate a comprehensive intervention that will affect environmental changes on the campus and in the community and reduce the incidence of alcohol related problems among college students." I'm not sure what they mean by "intervention" and "environmental changes," but their goal is nevertheless admirable. They want students to drink responsibly, and that's good. But it seems to me that they're trying to make less-than-desirable statistics work in their favor to "prove" that most students already have responsible drinking habits, thus encouraging that lagging one-quarter to get with the times and pass over that fifth drink.
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