Introduction
Learning statistics can help in making everyday decisions based on data analysis. You do not have to make thorough studies of statistical reports; it is enough to switch on a TV or grab a newspaper. Nearly every piece of news contains some statistical data. With the news, there is no need to deal with raw statistical data because, in news articles or pieces of news on TV, the data is already processed (Larson and Farber 113).
Main body
Statistical information in the news is used not only in reports on financial or economic items but also on every single issue including demographical, societal, scientific, or environmental. Paying attention to statistics can significantly affect people’s everyday lives and the choices they make from the smallest ones to more global. For example, you consider becoming a volunteer and at that moment hear that giving is a way to health and happiness from the voice on your TV. It is said that among those who were volunteers, there are fewer cases of suffering from high blood pressure after 50 than among those who were not (Carlton par. 8). After hearing such piece of news, you are willing to make donations and help others because you improve not only others’ lives for the better but also your state of mind and health. Then, for example, imagine you enjoy a can of beer after dinner and browse the Internet and see the article with the title Your Beer Belly May Kill You. You decide to scan it and find out that you would better not have a beer every night because it may lead to serious health problems. Namely, men who have beer belly “have twice the mortality risk of people who are just overweight or obese, [while] women with a similar fat distribution had 1.5 times risk of death” (Christensen par. 7).
Learning statistical data can help make crucial decisions that are likely to change your life completely. For example, you would like to change your job. In this case, you need to examine trends in the labor market because you want to know the number of working hours per week in different industries. And you are lucky to see the latest report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor where you see that the people occupied in leisure and hospitality have the least workload unlike those employed in mining and logging (“TED: The Economics Daily” par. 1). Or you would like to move to another city, and the primary decision criterion is your safety. You happen to look through the article on the topic of interest in which the authors state that the crime rate decreased by 4.4% as compared to last year, and the largest decrease is in Los Angeles and New York (Bailey and Borwein par. 10, 11), so these cities both satisfy your criterion. You may also want to buy a house if you decide to move, so monitoring mortgage rates in the banks of the towns mentioned above will help you choose where to take out a mortgage. In this case, you are lucky to run across the Refinance Mortgage Rate Report while browsing the Internet because it is the collection of the newest data on mortgage rates of every bank of the chosen city. So you can find that in New York, it is 3.9 to 4.4 while in Los Angeles, 3.8 to 4.6 (“Refinance Mortgage Rate” par.1).
Conclusion
So, statistics help you in making everyday decisions as well as choosing ways of changing your life. And the news reports mentioned above are the proofs of this statement because each of them contains processed statistical data that may help you analyze the issue of interest.
References
Bailey, David H., and Jonathan M. Borwein. Does Gun Control Encourage Crime? The Science of Crime Statistics. 2015. Web.
Carlton, Lindsey. The Power of Giving: Finding a Longer, Happier and Healthier Life. 2015. Web.
Christensen, Jen. Your Beer Belly May Kill You. 2015. Web.
Larson, Ron, and Betsy Farber. Elementary Statistics: Picturing the World. New York: Pearson. 2011. Print.
Refinance Mortgage Rates. 2015. Web.
TED: the Economics Daily. 2015. Web.