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Recently I saw a video clip from 2007, in which a statistic was cited claiming that one in five Americans are unable to locate the United States on a map. The statistic might be apocryphal, but for purposes of this log, I'm going to treat it as a result actually claimed by a real study.
A number like that is absolutely shocking. How could so many Americans not know the location of their own home country when looking right at it on a map? People tend to believe it, however, because of a prevailing opinion--even among US citizens--that the average American is appallingly ignorant.
When faced with any statistic, especially one designed to shock the reader, it's extremely important to look at the context of that statistic. The numbers might be correct, but the way they're presented can paint a very different picture from reality.
What does one in five Americans entail here? Does this mean all 300 million-plus citizens of the United States? That number includes millions of babies, toddlers and young schoolchildren who don't yet have the cognitive ability to identify shapes, associate those shapes with the abstract concept of countries, or positively correlate country shapes with the United States in particular. That number also includes elderly people in advanced stages of cognitive decline, people with severe learning difficulties, people with physical disabilities that hinder their ability to communicate, and even blind people who don't use visual tools such as maps.
The type of map used for this study also makes a big difference. Was a globe used or a flat map? Were country borders demarcated? Was the globe or map oriented with north at the top? If a flat map was used, was the entire world shown on the map, or only a subset of the world? What map projection was used? Some projections can distort the shapes of certain countries beyond recognition. Was a European-style map used (in which Europe and Africa are in the center), or was an Asian-style map used (in which China and Japan are in the center)? All of these factors may cause more people on the fringes to be unable to point out the United States.
These circumstances would likely explain the bulk of the statistic, but I also have no doubt that there are many American adults, with no disabilities and plenty of schooling, who really couldn't pick out America on a map. Why? Because for these adults, the location of the United States relative to other countries is not a fact they need to remember in their daily lives.
Most people around the world know that America is a big country, but I find that the majority of foreigners don't really grasp the nature of this particular nation. The United States is vast, extremely climatically diverse, and geographically isolated from the rest of the world. Many people in other countries have to travel internationally to experience different cultures and climates, but America is full to the brim with both. New England is nothing like the Gulf regions, which is nothing like the American Southwest, which is nothing like the Great Lakes region, which is nothing like Pacific Northwest. Americans can travel interstate and still experience communities totally unlike their own. Meanwhile, traveling to Europe, South America, Africa or Asia requires a long and very expensive plane flight, often out of reach for many working- and lower middle-class citizens. Plus, traveling interstate does not require a visa, and the overwhelming majority of communities speak English, so there's no need to learn a second language. Much of American life is intranational, because America as a country is big and diverse enough to host a wide variety of cultures within it own borders.
A lot of people find the one-in-five statistic depressing because of two assumptions they make unconsciously. The first assumption is that this statistic is limited to educated and independent adults who are eligible to vote: "Think of how stupid you have to be not to know where the country is, and these people elect our leaders!" The second assumption is that this ignorance is representative of a wider ignorance about many other topics: "If these people don't even know where America is on a map, imagine how little they must know about economics or science!" I think both of these are unfair assumptions to make.
Having said all this, it's quite possible that the aforementioned study fixed for all of these variables, only choosing adults who completed high school or equivalent education, were eligible to vote, had no functional or learning disabilities, had no cognitive issues, who all spoke English, and, who were all referencing a highly standardized map with country borders clearly demarcated and oriented with north on top. If all of these factors were accounted for, and that many Americans still failed to identify the US, then I'd find the statistic a little more worrying. In the meantime, though, I don't know the source of the statistic, and I therefore can't make any assumptions about how it was attained.
Many people use results like this to push narratives. Some use them to convince people that climate change does not exist, and others use them to convince people that the climate is in a much more dire state than it is. Some use them to advocate for one economic policy while others use them to advocate against the very same policy. In situations like this, context matters, and what the result is actually saying matters even more.
In high school, I read an excellent book by Stephen K. Campbell titled "Flaws and Fallacies in Statistical Thinking" (ISBN-13: 9780486435985) that discusses how statistics are abused. The edition I read was published in 1973, and the examples given were fairly dated, but the concepts and pitfalls are timeless. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is curious about how true figures are used to push false narratives.
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[Last updated: 2022-10-20]