Social isolation has had some unexpected effects on popular culture, from the runaway popularity of Animal Crossing to John Mulaney becoming an unexpected TikTok icon. But there’s also something else on the rise that few saw coming — a kind of cultural shift taking place in an election year unlike any that have come before.
In the lead-up to elections past, polling groups often endeavor to take the pulse of the electorate and get a sense of what election results might be. But polls lead to perennial questions about their accuracy — and debate over whether they lend too much weight to certain elements of the electorate.
In 2020, that may have changed. At The New York Times, Giovanni Russonello and Sarah Lyall report on a shift in how polls are perceived — namely, that some people called are grateful for the conversation.
… in an industry where rejection is a normal part of a day’s work pollsters are finding that many people are suddenly willing, even grateful, to talk. In some cases they are treating the anonymous questioners as lifelines to the world, almost as therapists, in the absence of other people to talk to.
It’s an unexpected shift in the dynamic — but it’s also something that raises larger questions about the effect of long-term solitude on people. It’s something that many observers of physical and mental health have already commented upon. Seeing this particular phenomenon in action, though, puts much of that discussion into sharp relief.
The results for polling groups is positive — as Russonello and Lyall write, with the uptick in responses, “it’s more likely that a poll’s respondents will come closer to reflecting the makeup of the general population.” But the reasons for that point to something more worrying about human connection at this point in time.
Subscribe here for our free daily newsletter.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
