June 3, 2015 : The Day the Telephone Poll Officially Died

Telephone polls will keep reporting results for as long as there are telephone poles and for as long as there are lazy and competitive news outlets looking for ways to draw curious eyeballs to their advertisements.
I've been doubting their utility for years (polls, not poles). However, as of today, all results of telephone polls are officially null and void, and here's the evidence leading me to this final judgment:

1) This morning I saw this Time headline online, "Johnny Carson Reigns as America’s Favorite Late-Night Host, Poll Finds," which seemed a little strange since he's been off the air for 23 years and a large percentage of the adult population able to stay up past 11:30 at night has never seen Johnny host The Tonight Show. Yet he had almost twice as much support as his closest competitors, 'None' and David Letterman. As suspected, this was a telephone poll of 2,105 Americans conducted by Quinnipiac and the only fact it proved is that the only people who are regularly answering calls from unidentified numbers are people over 65. I'm only surprised Jack Paar and Steve Allen didn't beat Letterman too.

2) The clincher came later in the morning when I read this AFP headline: "George W. Bush More Popular than Obama: Poll." This CNN/ORC poll was conducted by telephone from May 29 to 31 on a representative sample of 1,025 Americans who were dumb or old enough to answer calls from strangers. The pollsters claim a margin of error of 3%, which makes Dubya's 52%-49% "victory" over Obama a tie, but I'm leaning toward a margin of error of infinity.

Not only have telephone polls lost their utility and credibility; they've even lost what little ability they had to divert attention from cat videos.

Give the NSA a break with a #PhoneFree4th

An attitude of supine resignation to universal government surveillance seems to be the dominant tone of every story and editorial that has been written since Glenn Greenwald and  The Guardian made waves with their reporting based on Edward Snowden's leaks about the National Security Agency's Prism program last week.

Well, here's a modest proposal for one small symbolic protest we can make to show our discomfort with these extra-constitutional powers being displayed by the US Government's out-of-control security apparatus. What if we were to take one day, Independence Day, July 4th, to renounce our telephonic and internet umbilical cords and security blankets for 24 hours? There's plenty of time to spread the word about a #PhoneFree4th on  our social media platforms before we turn all our devices off to celebrate our "Freedom"® with fireworks and beer. (Those in other countries who don't have Thursday, July 4th as a holiday, but who may be uncomfortable with the NSA's mandate to spy on "foreigners" might also want to join in.)

Think about the fringe benefits of a #PhoneFree4th: Fewer car accidents from distracted driving, no drunk dialing or butt dialing of phones that have been turned off and packed away for the day, and no calls or emails accepted from those modern 24/7/365 go-getter corporate assholes who think they have the right to bother you with work on a national holiday. If you can't text the one you love, maybe you'll love the one you're with? And -- maybe best of all -- even the bloodshot eyes of the drones working in those soulless windowless cubicles of the NSA and Booz Allen on the Glorious Fourth might get a momentary rest with the reduced volume of calls, texts, tweets, IMs, etc., etc.

And, maybe, freed from the tyranny of the phone and texts and Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and ... and ... for one day, maybe we'll keep our devices turned off (or at least less active) on Friday the 5th and Saturday and Sunday the 6th and 7th as well.

I have 3,300 Twitter followers, so I'm starting this by tweeting a quick link to this post.  If you want to join in, feel free to do the same.