Anyone who has taken a statistics or psychology course would likely immediately know that there are a few things wrong with this data. Please, do not assume that this data is a fully accurate representation of the complete human population. Here are a few reasons why you should be careful when observing the data on this website:
- This data is collected from volunteers only
- When making conclusions about a population, it is important to have a randomly selected sample to make observations from. The data that you can find on this website has been collected by volunteers only, and may therefore be skewed and not fully represent the truth.
- This is an observational study
- In order to determine cause and effect, you must conduct an experiment with various treatments and a control group. The data found in the Moment Project is simply observed, and was not found in an experiment. Therefore, you cannot assume cause and effect from any conclusions on this website.
- Data quality issues
- As more time has passed since the moment that changed a person’s life, the more likely they are to misremember it or for small details to change. While I don’t believe that this is a monumental concern, recall bias could amount for minor inconsistencies or skewed data.
- Confounding variables
- Due to the wide range of people and situations depicted on this website, there are many confounding variables that may influence the severity of the moment submitted as well as the outcome of that moment. Variables may include, but are not limited to socioeconomic status, education level, personality traits, familial support, etc.
The Moment Project 