Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
From Internet Trolls to College Dropouts: Our 6 Favorite Charts of 2017
The-Conversation
By The Conversation
Published 7 years ago on
December 26, 2017

Share


News Analysis by
Aviva Rutkin, The Conversation
Editor’s Note: As the year comes to an end, we rounded up some of our favorite graphs and maps from archival articles The Conversation published in 2017.

1. Invisible Inequality

America may be getting richer, but who’s reaping the reward? The economic gap in the U.S. has widened over the past few decades. Today, the top 10% of U.S. households control over three-quarters of the country’s wealth.
But as inequality gets worse, something curious happens: More and more people think that they actually live in a meritocracy.

“People on either side of the income divide cannot see the breadth of the gap that separates their lives from those of others,” explains Jonathan J.B. Mijs at Harvard University. “As the gap grows wider, other people’s lives are harder to view. Rising inequality prevents people from seeing its full extent.”

2. Don’t Ditch the Degree

What do Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They’re all massively successful tech icons – and they all dropped out of college.
Dropping out is a well-worn trope in modern stories of business success. But a study of 11,745 U.S. leaders shows that dropouts like Zuckerberg are outliers. Ninety-four percent of the leaders attended college, about half at an elite school like Princeton.

“Perhaps in the future, college may not be as important to employers,” write the researchers at Duke University and Chemnitz University of Technology. “But for now, college dropouts who rule the world are rare exceptions – not the rule.”

3. Hollywood’s Diversity Problem

Hollywood has fielded criticism in recent years for a lack of diversity on the silver screen. In 2016, 7 in 10 speaking roles went to white actors.
What’s more, a study of over 800 top movies suggests that the best earners at the domestic and international box offices tend to have white leads and majority-white casts.

Roberto Pedace at Scripps College suggests that studios may be pandering to prejudiced consumers, as movies with diverse casts can struggle abroad: “The revenue implications of international audience preferences are simply too large for studios to ignore.”

4. Big Business in the Big House

The number of prisons in the U.S. has more than tripled since 1970. Roughly 70% have been built in rural communities – largely in southern states like Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas.

Prisons can be a means of survival for struggling communities, writes John Eason at Texas A&M University. “Prisons provide a short-term boost to the local economy by increasing median family income and home value while reducing unemployment and poverty.”

5. Opioids by the Numbers

About 64,000 people died of drug overdose in the U.S. in 2016 – many from heroin, fentanyl and other opioids.
Oxycodone, a semi-synthetic pain medication, is one of the most commonly prescribed opioids in the U.S. In fact, U.S. per capita oxycodone consumption is much higher than other developed nations.

Andrew Kolodny at Brandeis University says that overprescription is one of the driving causes of the epidemic. “Until opioids are prescribed more cautiously and until effective opioid addiction treatment becomes easier to access, overdose deaths will likely remain at record high levels.”

6. The Trolls Among Us

The internet can be a nasty place. Take a trip into the comments section under a news article or YouTube video, and you might see name-calling, graphic threats or even hate speech.
Who’s posting this stuff? A study of millions of comments on CNN.com suggests that almost anyone can be pushed to troll others – under the right circumstances.

According to the team’s research, negative comments peak late at night and on Mondays.
The ConversationWhat’s more, the more troll comments there are in a particular discussion, the more likely future participants will also troll. As the authors at Stanford University and Cornell University write, “Many ‘trolls’ are just people like ourselves who are having a bad day.”
About the Author
Aviva Rutkin is Big Data + Applied Mathematics Editor at The Conversation.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
 

DON'T MISS

Musk PAC Tells Philadelphia Judge the $1 Million Sweepstakes Winners Are Not Chosen by Chance

DON'T MISS

Bass’ Record 61-Yard Field Goal Lifts Bills Over Dolphins in Thriller

DON'T MISS

Big Spenders: These Companies Are Giving the Most to California Legislative Candidates

DON'T MISS

Stock Market Today: Wall Street Drifts Ahead of Election Day, While Oil Rises and Yields Sink

DON'T MISS

Saints Fire Head Coach Dennis Allen After Seven-Game Losing Streak

DON'T MISS

Raiders Fire Offensive Coordinator Luke Getsy and 2 Other Offensive Coaches

DON'T MISS

Storm in the Caribbean Is on a Track to Likely Hit Cuba as a Hurricane

DON'T MISS

Israel Ends Agreement With UN Agency Providing Aid in Gaza

DON'T MISS

Demarcus Robinson’s One-Handed Catch in OT Gives Rams Win Over Seahawks

DON'T MISS

Trump, Musk and an American Masculinity Crisis

UP NEXT

Bass’ Record 61-Yard Field Goal Lifts Bills Over Dolphins in Thriller

UP NEXT

Stock Market Today: Wall Street Drifts Ahead of Election Day, While Oil Rises and Yields Sink

UP NEXT

Saints Fire Head Coach Dennis Allen After Seven-Game Losing Streak

UP NEXT

Raiders Fire Offensive Coordinator Luke Getsy and 2 Other Offensive Coaches

UP NEXT

Israel Ends Agreement With UN Agency Providing Aid in Gaza

UP NEXT

Demarcus Robinson’s One-Handed Catch in OT Gives Rams Win Over Seahawks

UP NEXT

Trump, Musk and an American Masculinity Crisis

UP NEXT

What One Tossup District Says About the Trump-Harris Battle for the Suburbs

UP NEXT

Herbert Shines, Chargers Defense Dominates in Win Over Browns

UP NEXT

US Confirms Reports That Iran Arrested an Iranian-American Citizen

Stock Market Today: Wall Street Drifts Ahead of Election Day, While Oil Rises and Yields Sink

31 mins ago

Saints Fire Head Coach Dennis Allen After Seven-Game Losing Streak

35 mins ago

Raiders Fire Offensive Coordinator Luke Getsy and 2 Other Offensive Coaches

39 mins ago

Storm in the Caribbean Is on a Track to Likely Hit Cuba as a Hurricane

42 mins ago

Israel Ends Agreement With UN Agency Providing Aid in Gaza

47 mins ago

Demarcus Robinson’s One-Handed Catch in OT Gives Rams Win Over Seahawks

1 hour ago

Trump, Musk and an American Masculinity Crisis

1 hour ago

What One Tossup District Says About the Trump-Harris Battle for the Suburbs

1 hour ago

Herbert Shines, Chargers Defense Dominates in Win Over Browns

2 hours ago

US Confirms Reports That Iran Arrested an Iranian-American Citizen

2 hours ago

Musk PAC Tells Philadelphia Judge the $1 Million Sweepstakes Winners Are Not Chosen by Chance

PHILADELPHIA — A lawyer for Elon Musk’s political action committee told a judge in Philadelphia on Monday that so-called “winner...

11 mins ago

11 mins ago

Musk PAC Tells Philadelphia Judge the $1 Million Sweepstakes Winners Are Not Chosen by Chance

17 mins ago

Bass’ Record 61-Yard Field Goal Lifts Bills Over Dolphins in Thriller

31 mins ago

Big Spenders: These Companies Are Giving the Most to California Legislative Candidates

31 mins ago

Stock Market Today: Wall Street Drifts Ahead of Election Day, While Oil Rises and Yields Sink

35 mins ago

Saints Fire Head Coach Dennis Allen After Seven-Game Losing Streak

Raiders
39 mins ago

Raiders Fire Offensive Coordinator Luke Getsy and 2 Other Offensive Coaches

42 mins ago

Storm in the Caribbean Is on a Track to Likely Hit Cuba as a Hurricane

47 mins ago

Israel Ends Agreement With UN Agency Providing Aid in Gaza

Search

Send this to a friend