People Without Landlines Are Smokers And Heavy Drinkers

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Don't have a landline? Then you are most likely a drunk that smokes a lot. Probably a bad person too. :rolleyes:

Adults in wireless-only households are, for example, less likely to have received their flu shots and are more likely to have faced financial barriers to health care. They're also more likely to smoke and drink heavily. And those correlations stick even when researchers control for factors such as age, income level and home ownership status.
 
Who comes up with this bullshit?

How much did this bullshit study cost?
 
Oh they got results from random calls. Which were probably to landlines... those landline people were probably all "Those smoking/drinking cell phone users!!! ARGH!"
 
I'm none of those. Divorced guy who has no need for a phone attached to my house. There's 5 other ways to reach me. Use one of those.
 
Who comes up with this bullshit?

How much did this bullshit study cost?

+1

I am guessing that this is another study that only targeted specific people in order to get the results that they wanted.. as most "studies" of this sort are run this way.

I don't have a land line because it is a waste of money. And another big factor is that I don't have to deal with near as many telemarketing calls.

The real kicker is, is that is you get a VOIP device such as a MagicJack, it cost about $20 or so per year for unlimited calling including long distance. The call quality is just as good as a land line and costs about 1/12 the price of a land line without even factoring in long distance charges for a land line.

Also, what is the point of a landline when you have a cell phone unless cell phone service
completely sucks in your location?

My guess is that most of the people without land-lines have a lot more common sense than people with land lines.

I don't buy for one minute that most people without landlines are drunken chain smokers.
 
This is probably the dumbest shit ive ever read. Why cant it be that I pay 180 a month for me and the wifes cell service so why would I pay for a landline? Also never have drank,smoked,did any drugs.

Dumb
 
I'm none of those. Divorced guy who has no need for a phone attached to my house. There's 5 other ways to reach me. Use one of those.

Don't drink, or just don't think you drink more than most people?
 
Hmm, I think they are completely misinterpreting their data and not factoring in somethings like the fact that Smoking has shot up dramatically over the last ten years and I would bet drinking is right there with it. Yea, go figure right.

Look, we are on the downturn of ten years of war. When I was in the Army, I retired before 9/11, it was a rarity to see an Officer who smoked. I went to Iraq in 06-07 and I saw more Officers smoking then I ever would have believed before. Man, I bet like 70% of the Army was smoking and that's conservative I think.

The country is in shitty financial shape and even if it isn't as bad as it feels it is the feeling that counts so you can bet people are drinking. Add to that the simple fact that people are cutting the cords, all the cords, and it's just two disparate sets of data that they have misinterpreted as relational and it's exacerbated by the fact that people don't want to talk about their bullshit studies.
 
Don't drink, or just don't think you drink more than most people?

Not the other person, but I don't drink at all and I don't smoke and also don't have a landline. (Had family members who took those excesses way too far which is why I stay away from them).
 
Who are they surveying? I have a drink every 2-3 months, and I've never been drunk. I have never smoked anything ever.
 
What? lol

For me the landline was just too restrictive compared to a higher cost portable device. I also didn't like the constant telemarketing calls I used to get, and would have to jump through hoops to get removed from a list or blocked. On my cell, i click block caller.

I do kinda miss the annoying noise the phone would make when you would take it off the hook because you wanted to watch a movie without annoying calls. Not that the noise was useful, just nostalgic at this point.
 
There is some tricky wording in the title there ... the article phrased it, "They're also more likely to smoke and drink heavily" ... that doesn't indicate they do it (or that a majority of them do it) ... also, they indicated that wireless only people in the USA are generally from the lower income groups (which makes sense since they might have more problems with the fees or credit ratings required to get a land line), however, lower income groups do have higher susceptibility to those things mentioned (smoking and drinking)

There also appears to be lots of confounded data in a study like this ... I would be interested to see how the next census addresses this data (as that is usually a much better measure of the mass demographics) ... also, I would be interested to see where they classify a person like me (I have a land line but one through a VOIP provider ... Vonage) ... generally when they think land lines they are thinking of the big Telcos
 
Everyone I know has given up their land-line over the last few years including my ex father inlaw who had his number for 35+ years.

None of those people are stupid enough to smoke or drink heavy.
 
What is the point of having a land line these days? Only use I can see is if power is out, it still works that is it... Or certain buisness...
 
This is probably the dumbest shit ive ever read. Why cant it be that I pay 180 a month for me and the wifes cell service so why would I pay for a landline? Also never have drank,smoked,did any drugs.

Dumb

You sir need to get out a little more often!
 
There is some tricky wording in the title there ... the article phrased it, "They're also more likely to smoke and drink heavily" ... that doesn't indicate they do it (or that a majority of them do it) ... also, they indicated that wireless only people in the USA are generally from the lower income groups (which makes sense since they might have more problems with the fees or credit ratings required to get a land line), however, lower income groups do have higher susceptibility to those things mentioned (smoking and drinking)

Actually the results are not surprising.
Having a landline is getting to be a luxury for many people.
Higher income people that can afford to a cell and a landline are also less likely to smoke/drink heavily.
Many low income people, would rather spend their money on smoking/drinking than on a landline.
 
This reminds me of Snowden's latest contribution to world wide ignorance & superstition: according to more of Snowden's "secret-never-before-seen" photochopped documents, the NSA prepared in-depth studies on why "Mac users are more likely to be heroin addicts and crack ho's than they are to have graduated from the sixth grade"....! Whoa! Heavy Stuff, indeed!
 
I think its' pretty straightforward: Those who've gotten rid of their land lines tend to be poorer, less well-educated. The demographic in our society which tends to smoke and drink more. Or, conversely, those who've kept their land tend to be more affluent and can afford both cell phones and landlines.

Adults living in poverty are also much more likely to only have cellphones; 56.2 of poor households have no landline service, as compared to 36.6 percent of higher-income adults.
 
The prevalence of having five or more
alcoholic drinks in 1 day during the
past year among wireless-only adults
(29.0%) was substantially higher than
the prevalence among adults living in
landline households (17.2%).


Nearly two-thirds of adults aged 25–
29 (65.7%) lived in households with
only wireless telephones. This rate is
greater than the rates for those aged
18–24 (53.0%) or 30–34 (59.7%).

Hmm, let's see...could it be that people who drink more could be young and living on their own, rather than older or those living at home with parents?
 
lol @ monkey cage shaking headline and summary.

reaction planned and received.
 
LOL!!
I don't have a land line and I don't drink or smoke. Never have! Where do I fit in to this madness?
 
Note that this is a uniquely US thing I suspect ... outside the USA land lines are very expensive and very rare ... the vast majority of users are wireless ... our demographics get skewed because we have a legacy of land lines as well as credit implications that make it much easier for the poor to go wireless than to get land lines
 
This study may be accurate. I mean look who has landlines.. Elderly people. Who has gotten rid of their landline.. young to middle age people. The age where drinking and smoking is done. Old people cannot drink or smoke much because of medical reasons. So I would say this is probably accurate. It would be interesting to see a the full demographic range of this study.
 
This study may be accurate. I mean look who has landlines.. Elderly people. Who has gotten rid of their landline.. young to middle age people. The age where drinking and smoking is done. Old people cannot drink or smoke much because of medical reasons. So I would say this is probably accurate. It would be interesting to see a the full demographic range of this study.

Not quite.

Elderly people drink and smoke quite a bit regardless of doctors orders. Addiction is addiction.
Alcoholics live a life that was a blur to begin with. They usually don't quit because they are elderly. Likely their life is way to painful to deal with sober for them.
I've know elderly people that lost a lung to still smoke. (have a relative like that) Even seen them stick a cigarette in their trach hole to take a drag. Sick huh??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7bHdo2DJHY
 
I remember getting the electricity set up for my apartment 8 years ago, and apparently the electric company had some sort of deal to upsell Embarq at the time. Guy said it cost $130/month, and I basically said fuck no. Then he gets all pissy at me for him wasting 10 minutes of his time trying to sell me phone service that I wasn't going to buy. Sorry I couldn't get you your $5 commision for selling exorbitant landline service :rolleyes:.
 
I remember getting the electricity set up for my apartment 8 years ago, and apparently the electric company had some sort of deal to upsell Embarq at the time. Guy said it cost $130/month, and I basically said fuck no. Then he gets all pissy at me for him wasting 10 minutes of his time trying to sell me phone service that I wasn't going to buy. Sorry I couldn't get you your $5 commision for selling exorbitant landline service :rolleyes:.

Likely that guy HATES the fact he is forced to do sales, when that isn't even his job.
I have been in the position where the company you work for forces you to meet a sales score even you are NOT a salesman, you JOB isn't sales, you just do service or install work. Part of the reason I don't so field work anymore.
 
The prevalence of having five or more
alcoholic drinks in 1 day during the
past year among wireless-only adults
(29.0%) was substantially higher than
the prevalence among adults living in
landline households (17.2%).


Nearly two-thirds of adults aged 25–
29 (65.7%) lived in households with
only wireless telephones. This rate is
greater than the rates for those aged
18–24 (53.0%) or 30–34 (59.7%).

Hmm, let's see...could it be that people who drink more could be young and living on their own, rather than older or those living at home with parents?

Exactly. They could have substituted anything young people are associated with and used that. Hey look, people that eat ramen noodles regularly tend to be heavier drinkers than those that don't. Must be the noodles!
 
Likely that guy HATES the fact he is forced to do sales, when that isn't even his job.
I have been in the position where the company you work for forces you to meet a sales score even you are NOT a salesman, you JOB isn't sales, you just do service or install work. Part of the reason I don't so field work anymore.
Yeah, that's true. I get pretty pissy myself when asked to assist with things that my job should not entail. Being forced to would be another thing entirely.
 
Haven't had a wire line phone in 7 years.
I've had probably 30 drinks in those 7 years.
I've had 0 cigarettes in those 7 years.

Good study/theory....
 
Didn't have a landline since I moved out of my mom's house 7 or 8 years ago after university. I don't subscribe to crap I don't use at least a few hours a day that are non-essential. The only two telecommunications I subscribe to is an internet connection and a cell plan with data. When the hell did these researchers make the correlation of smoking to not paying for a landline?

I don't subscribe to cable TV to rot my brain, I must be a heavy heroine and crack addict then. :rolleyes:

Here's a better study, how many researchers must die before they stop publishing these stupid articles? Probably just one and the word will spread not to conduct and waste money on dumb research. One life for the benefit of the many.
 
Here's a better study, how many researchers must die before they stop publishing these stupid articles? Probably just one and the word will spread not to conduct and waste money on dumb research. One life for the benefit of the many.

that seems a bit harsh....
 
You are more likely to drink/smoke if you are under educated and/or lower class.

Therefore your income is likely limited. Why have duplicate services when you blowing all your money on booze and cigarettes.

This is the DUH study of the day.
 
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