A fifth of Europeans can't work out how much a TV costs

Gladdens my heart!

"Respondents were next presented with a scenario where two shops were selling identical flat-screen TVs. They were told that in shop A, the price is €500 but a discount of 10% is offered. In shop B, the price is €400. Consumers were asked which TV would be cheaper."

And here I thought that it was only American schools and educational establishments that churned out illiterate, innumerate idiots.

And 100% click "accept" without reading the agreement

I have some sympathy with the 18% who were flummoxed by a BBD. Given that a date such as 08/03/11 could refer to August, March or November over a span of 8 years, it's easy to see where the confusion can arise.

It's really well past time (that time was 31/12/99) that we all agreed that representing three different fields with three identically formatted values in no standard format is a recipe for confusion, if not disaster. Surely it's not that difficult to use three letters for the month and remember the lessons of Y2K and have a 4-digit year value? Though whether that year should be western, jewish, chinese or another choice still leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding.

Stop the world please,

I want to get off now.

Before you all dive in...

...to bemoan the state of (several) European education systems, perhaps you should remind yourselves that this is a consumer survey and so 99% of its findings are worthless.

In this case, I'd suggest that the sort of person who responds to the survey probably has too much spare time on their hands and there might be a reason for that.

Reading a contract?

Well, there's having a rough idea of what you're signing. And then there's reading through 20 pages of small print, fully understanding what all the legal terms mean - and then keeping updated when they dubiously "update" the terms and conditions without your consent.

Whilst it's sad if people happily enter a contract without looking at it at all, how many of us actually read every last word?

"These days, I've seen shop assistants reach for their calculator to add a few simple numbers (both less than 20)"

I've seen Cambridge maths professors reaching for a calculator ... Using a calculator (which everyone has with them these days, even if just on a phone) isn't so bad as long as you know how to do the calculation. I fear the bigger problem here is that many people wouldn't know how to do it even with a calculator - that they wouldn't understand what percentage difference means.

Erk

I do actually work with a few people who have no idea how to calculate for percentages.

What's most alarming about this is that among all the maths you learn at school percentages are among the most useful in everyday life.

I had to think

It actually took me a little while -- not to do the calculation, but to remember both prices. When they are in different shops it often becomes worse, because one might "throw in" an extended guarantee and the other might actually provide batteries for the remote.

But in fact what most people will see is DISCOUNT!!! in big letters, and they have been conditioned that anything with a DISCOUNT is good no matter what the actual price. The same as they have been conditioned that "SAVE 200 POUNDS" (on a 1000 pound sofa they don't need) is actually saving them money rather than costing them 800 pounds.

(untitled)

You might have your IQ was rising year on year in Europe. But as we all know young folk are getting record exam passes year on year also, proving that in the UK at least, your IQ is falling. Both at the same time, must be a quantum thing :-)

If 20% got it wrong

If 20% got the TV question wrong, then it is likely that another 20% managed to pick the right answer at random without actually knowing that 10% off €500 is €450 and that €450 > €400.

The way I got good at %ges..

..was playing Eve-online. When a week's work can be lost by not understanding '3% increase in resistence to kinetic damage' on a shield or you fail to destroy someone else' week's work because '2.5% reduction in tracking speed' confused you - that's when you brush up your math skills.

Example stats for a ship:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Nighthawk

For a tracking mod:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Beta-Nought_Tracking_Mode

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=219192

In some ways it's encouraging that so many 'yoof's can put in so much effort and get to grips with that much complexity. On the down side I wonder how they find the time - some of them put in twelve or fourteen hour days.

I hung in there for a few years but eventually I couldn't take it any more. It started to turn into a second job and since I wasn't getting paid to play I gave it up.

A trick question

The punters are right to be flummoxed. In a real shop the information given is designed to fuddle not inform. The real tickets would read:

"From €400"

"€500 - Up to 25% off"

Obviously the question is a trick one.

I went in Carphone Warehouse to buy a T-mobile PAYG phone. All the prices were "from", there was no mention of operators and no mention of how to get the "from" price. I walked out without a word and without a phone. It is not as though you have to go far to find another phone shop.