The current year is the International Year of Statistics. At times statisticians, or rather their work, may be perceived as monotonous and tedious. On the contrary - statisticians write informative stories about numbers. They can talk for hours about the simple moving average, the weighted moving average, the exponential moving average depending on who they want to appease. Statisticians are thought to read numbers and figures and make future projections and forecasts. No doubt statisticians play a very important role in our lives. Take surveys and/or opinion polls and statisticians will give a sound interpretation to whoever carries out a survey or an opinion poll, obviously the larger the sample the more accurate the analysis would be. It goes even at the bargaining tables between employers and unions, when negotiating a salary raise unions need to show statistically that workers are going to make significant efficiency improvements and a gain for their employer.
Many people would not be too much interested in numbers and figures and comparing figures with the month before and averaging performance with a moving average. Notwithstanding this we still need to make sense out of a string of figures and numbers. The interpretation of numbers and figures varies and depends on which side one would prefer to put his/her weight. Numbers and figures may also give and leave a good impression or a distressing state of affairs. Last week TVM prime time news had a very informative and interesting news item. The news item under review was about mobile telephony and its usage. During the past years Malta has made large strides forward in the telecommunications sector thanks to the huge investments made by private companies in this sector.
The news item gave a very detailed account about the way our society has changed with the arrival of mobile telephony. The arrival of mobile telephones has changed the way people interact and the way people communicate, at times, even at the very odd hours of the day. When mobile telephony was introduced on the island a small segment within our society was financially able to support this technological gadget. In those times people who owned a mobile phone were mostly supporting their status in society by displaying their mobile phone. Mobile phones usage was limited to calling and receiving phone calls only.
This has all changed rapidly in the last three years. The Maltese mobile phone companies have registered an impressive increase of users and new subscribers with figures indicating that in 2012 Malta had no less than 550,000 subscribers. This figure is higher than the population of Malta. This gives a clear indication that three out of every ten people have a minimum of two mobile phones subscriptions. Perhaps one should look into these figures in detail and quantify the number of people living on social benefits and other state assistance having two mobile phones.
In addition to this and in the light of these figures one may ask why has the number of Maltese living in poor or materially deprived conditions recorded a rise in 2011? It was estimated that one in every five people was negatively affected so much so that in 2011 around 89,000 people were at risk of poverty or were severely materially deprived, an increase of 1.1 per cent over 2010. This clearly demonstrates that our society has changed its priorities, which in itself may not be a bad thing but there is a price to this shift.
Going back to the subject of mobile telephony - mobile users have recently welcomed the news that local companies have further reduced their rates for roaming by an additional 3 cents. In 2011 the roaming rate was that of €0.13c per minute, now is has gone down to €0.10c. This will continue to encourage mobile owners to talk for more and more minutes.
In addition to this SMS traffic has also increased from 577 million text SMSs in 2011 to a staggering 633.8 million SMSs in 2012. On average in 2012 every mobile holder sent 1,194 SMSs. It seems that our society has developed a new skill to communicate and interact. Whether this is better than meeting in person one has to see in future.
In my opinion our small society, a community which by far is smaller than a city in one of our neighbouring countries should strive to find ways and means to ensure that people will continue to communicate in person. While without shadow of doubt the new mobile telephony technology has improved and is set to continue to develop and thus improving the quality of life of many people it is equally important that people find ways to meet in person to air their views while listening to ideas and different point of views.
People are turning to their mobile phones for comfort and as such people use their mobile phone while driving, though it is against the law, when walking, at the church, at the gym, in restaurants, bars, coffee shops, schools at the supermarket, at the place of work, even at the lavatories. One way or another people want to share an experience with loved ones, friends, colleagues and God knows how else. Hopefully our society is not losing on its communicative skills in person. Future generations should ensure that their ability to communicate effectively in person is not lost otherwise they may end with too many people able to send “LoL” SMSs but too little with persuasive skills. Reading the signs of the times is an issue which should be of concern to us all while statisticians have a major role to play politicians have a duty to look at society from different angles.
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I am not superstitious but it is starting to make some sense why so many people avoid the number thirteen. This year being the thirteenth year of this century will be remembered by all Hamrunizi who were shocked at the sight of the statue of San Gejtanu losing balance but saved by the timely intercession of San Gejtanu who must have been caught relaxing in heaven after the traditional Sunday morning band marches ended in high spirits to His satisfaction and all Hamrunizi. All is well that ends well.
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Last Saturday many paid tribute to Salvu k/ail-BuBa at St. Publius Church in Floriana for the last time.Salvu was a hard working family man with a heart of gold. For many years after leaving office on Saturday I have visited his shop for a drink, some spicy bites and a chat with friends. This has always lasted more…than I would have planned. Grazzi Salv.
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