Internet privacy has gained widespread attention in recent years. To measure the degree to which people are concerned about hot-button issues like Internet privacy, social scientists conduct polls in which they interview a large number of people about the topic. In this assignment, we will analyze data from a July 2013 Pew Internet and American Life Project poll on Internet anonymity and privacy, which involved interviews across the United States. While the full polling data can be found here, we will use a more limited version of the results, available in AnonymityPoll.csv.
The dataset has the following fields (all Internet use-related fields were only collected from interviewees who either use the Internet or have a smartphone):
Internet.Use: A binary variable indicating if the interviewee uses the Internet, at least occasionally (equals 1 if the interviewee uses the Internet, and equals 0 if the interviewee does not use the Internet).
Smartphone: A binary variable indicating if the interviewee has a smartphone (equals 1 if they do have a smartphone, and equals 0 if they don't have a smartphone).
Sex: Male or Female.
Age: Age in years.
State: State of residence of the interviewee.
Region: Census region of the interviewee (Midwest, Northeast, South, or West).
Conservativeness: Self-described level of conservativeness of interviewee, from 1 (very liberal) to 5 (very conservative).
Info.On.Internet: Number of the following items this interviewee believes to be available on the Internet for others to see: (1) Their email address; (2) Their home address; (3) Their home phone number; (4) Their cell phone number; (5) The employer/company they work for; (6) Their political party or political affiliation; (7) Things they've written that have their name on it; (8) A photo of them; (9) A video of them; (10) Which groups or organizations they belong to; and (11) Their birth date.
Worry.About.Info: A binary variable indicating if the interviewee worries about how much information is available about them on the Internet (equals 1 if they worry, and equals 0 if they don't worry).
Privacy.Importance: A score from 0 (privacy is not too important) to 100 (privacy is very important), which combines the degree to which they find privacy important in the following: (1) The websites they browse; (2) Knowledge of the place they are located when they use the Internet; (3) The content and files they download; (4) The times of day they are online; (5) The applications or programs they use; (6) The searches they perform; (7) The content of their email; (8) The people they exchange email with; and (9) The content of their online chats or hangouts with others.
Anonymity.Possible: A binary variable indicating if the interviewee thinks it's possible to use the Internet anonymously, meaning in such a way that online activities can't be traced back to them (equals 1 if he/she believes you can, and equals 0 if he/she believes you can't).
Anonymity.Possible: A binary variable indicating if the interviewee thinks it's possible to use the Internet anonymously, meaning in such a way that online activities can't be traced back to them (equals 1 if he/she believes you can, and equals 0 if he/she believes you can't).
Tried.Masking.Identity: A binary variable indicating if the interviewee has ever tried to mask his/her identity when using the Internet (equals 1 if he/she has tried to mask his/her identity, and equals 0 if he/she has not tried to mask his/her identity).
Privacy.Laws.Effective: A binary variable indicating if the interviewee believes United States law provides reasonable privacy protection for Internet users (equals 1 if he/she believes it does, and equals 0 if he/she believes it doesn't).
# Set the directory at where the data is located
setwd("/home/tarek/Analytics/Week1/Rlectures/Data")
# Read the Data
poll <- read.csv("AnonymityPoll.csv")
str(poll)
## 'data.frame': 1002 obs. of 13 variables:
## $ Internet.Use : int 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 ...
## $ Smartphone : int 0 0 1 0 NA 1 0 0 NA 0 ...
## $ Sex : Factor w/ 2 levels "Female","Male": 2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 ...
## $ Age : int 62 45 70 70 80 49 52 76 75 76 ...
## $ State : Factor w/ 49 levels "Alabama","Arizona",..: 20 39 29 10 10 41 21 31 32 32 ...
## $ Region : Factor w/ 4 levels "Midwest","Northeast",..: 2 3 2 3 3 3 1 2 3 3 ...
## $ Conservativeness : int 4 1 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 ...
## $ Info.On.Internet : int 0 1 0 3 NA 6 3 NA NA 0 ...
## $ Worry.About.Info : int 1 0 0 1 NA 0 1 NA NA 0 ...
## $ Privacy.Importance : num 100 0 NA 88.9 NA ...
## $ Anonymity.Possible : int 0 1 0 1 NA 1 0 NA NA 1 ...
## $ Tried.Masking.Identity: int 0 0 0 0 NA 1 0 NA NA 0 ...
## $ Privacy.Laws.Effective: int 0 1 NA 0 NA 0 1 NA 0 1 ...
summary(poll)
## Internet.Use Smartphone Sex Age
## Min. :0.000 Min. :0.00 Female:505 Min. :18.0
## 1st Qu.:1.000 1st Qu.:0.00 Male :497 1st Qu.:37.0
## Median :1.000 Median :1.00 Median :55.0
## Mean :0.774 Mean :0.51 Mean :52.4
## 3rd Qu.:1.000 3rd Qu.:1.00 3rd Qu.:66.0
## Max. :1.000 Max. :1.00 Max. :96.0
## NA's :1 NA's :43 NA's :27
## State Region Conservativeness Info.On.Internet
## California :103 Midwest :239 Min. :1.00 Min. : 0.0
## Texas : 72 Northeast:166 1st Qu.:3.00 1st Qu.: 2.0
## New York : 60 South :359 Median :3.00 Median : 4.0
## Pennsylvania: 45 West :238 Mean :3.28 Mean : 3.8
## Florida : 42 3rd Qu.:4.00 3rd Qu.: 6.0
## Ohio : 38 Max. :5.00 Max. :11.0
## (Other) :642 NA's :62 NA's :210
## Worry.About.Info Privacy.Importance Anonymity.Possible
## Min. :0.00 Min. : 0.0 Min. :0.00
## 1st Qu.:0.00 1st Qu.: 41.4 1st Qu.:0.00
## Median :0.00 Median : 68.8 Median :0.00
## Mean :0.49 Mean : 62.9 Mean :0.37
## 3rd Qu.:1.00 3rd Qu.: 88.9 3rd Qu.:1.00
## Max. :1.00 Max. :100.0 Max. :1.00
## NA's :212 NA's :215 NA's :249
## Tried.Masking.Identity Privacy.Laws.Effective
## Min. :0.00 Min. :0.00
## 1st Qu.:0.00 1st Qu.:0.00
## Median :0.00 Median :0.00
## Mean :0.16 Mean :0.26
## 3rd Qu.:0.00 3rd Qu.:1.00
## Max. :1.00 Max. :1.00
## NA's :218 NA's :108
# Summary statistics on smartphone
table(poll$Smartphone)
##
## 0 1
## 472 487
summary(poll$Smartphone)
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. NA's
## 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.51 1.00 1.00 43
# States in the midwest
MidwestInterviewees = subset(poll, Region == "Midwest")
table(MidwestInterviewees$State)
##
## Alabama Arizona Arkansas
## 0 0 0
## California Colorado Connecticut
## 0 0 0
## Delaware District of Columbia Florida
## 0 0 0
## Georgia Idaho Illinois
## 0 0 32
## Indiana Iowa Kansas
## 27 14 14
## Kentucky Louisiana Maine
## 0 0 0
## Maryland Massachusetts Michigan
## 0 0 31
## Minnesota Mississippi Missouri
## 15 0 26
## Montana Nebraska Nevada
## 0 11 0
## New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico
## 0 0 0
## New York North Carolina North Dakota
## 0 0 5
## Ohio Oklahoma Oregon
## 38 0 0
## Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina
## 0 0 0
## South Dakota Tennessee Texas
## 3 0 0
## Utah Vermont Virginia
## 0 0 0
## Washington West Virginia Wisconsin
## 0 0 23
## Wyoming
## 0
# Interviewees from each South region state
SouthInterviewees = subset(poll, Region == "South")
table(SouthInterviewees$State)
##
## Alabama Arizona Arkansas
## 11 0 10
## California Colorado Connecticut
## 0 0 0
## Delaware District of Columbia Florida
## 6 2 42
## Georgia Idaho Illinois
## 34 0 0
## Indiana Iowa Kansas
## 0 0 0
## Kentucky Louisiana Maine
## 25 17 0
## Maryland Massachusetts Michigan
## 18 0 0
## Minnesota Mississippi Missouri
## 0 11 0
## Montana Nebraska Nevada
## 0 0 0
## New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico
## 0 0 0
## New York North Carolina North Dakota
## 0 32 0
## Ohio Oklahoma Oregon
## 0 14 0
## Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina
## 0 0 12
## South Dakota Tennessee Texas
## 0 17 72
## Utah Vermont Virginia
## 0 0 31
## Washington West Virginia Wisconsin
## 0 5 0
## Wyoming
## 0
# Summary table of smartphone and internet uses
table(poll$Internet.Use, poll$Smartphone)
##
## 0 1
## 0 186 17
## 1 285 470
# limit to interviewees who reported Internet use or who reported
# smartphone use.
limited = subset(poll, Internet.Use == 1 | Smartphone == 1)
summary(limited)
## Internet.Use Smartphone Sex Age
## Min. :0.000 Min. :0.000 Female:392 Min. :18.0
## 1st Qu.:1.000 1st Qu.:0.000 Male :400 1st Qu.:33.0
## Median :1.000 Median :1.000 Median :51.0
## Mean :0.979 Mean :0.631 Mean :48.6
## 3rd Qu.:1.000 3rd Qu.:1.000 3rd Qu.:62.0
## Max. :1.000 Max. :1.000 Max. :93.0
## NA's :20 NA's :22
## State Region Conservativeness Info.On.Internet
## California : 89 Midwest :172 Min. :1.00 Min. : 0.00
## Texas : 57 Northeast:128 1st Qu.:3.00 1st Qu.: 2.00
## New York : 45 South :288 Median :3.00 Median : 4.00
## Pennsylvania : 33 West :204 Mean :3.24 Mean : 3.79
## Florida : 32 3rd Qu.:4.00 3rd Qu.: 6.00
## North Carolina: 28 Max. :5.00 Max. :11.00
## (Other) :508 NA's :45
## Worry.About.Info Privacy.Importance Anonymity.Possible
## Min. :0.000 Min. : 0.0 Min. :0.00
## 1st Qu.:0.000 1st Qu.: 41.4 1st Qu.:0.00
## Median :0.000 Median : 68.8 Median :0.00
## Mean :0.489 Mean : 62.9 Mean :0.37
## 3rd Qu.:1.000 3rd Qu.: 88.9 3rd Qu.:1.00
## Max. :1.000 Max. :100.0 Max. :1.00
## NA's :2 NA's :5 NA's :39
## Tried.Masking.Identity Privacy.Laws.Effective
## Min. :0.000 Min. :0.00
## 1st Qu.:0.000 1st Qu.:0.00
## Median :0.000 Median :0.00
## Mean :0.163 Mean :0.26
## 3rd Qu.:0.000 3rd Qu.:1.00
## Max. :1.000 Max. :1.00
## NA's :8 NA's :65
mean(limited$Info.On.Internet)
## [1] 3.795
table(limited$Info.On.Internet)
##
## 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
## 105 84 95 101 104 94 67 63 40 18 13 8
# Proportion of interviewees who answered the Worry.About.Info question
# worry about how much information is available about them on the Internet
sum(limited$Worry.About.Info == 1, na.rm = T)/sum(limited$Worry.About.Info ==
1 | limited$Worry.About.Info == 0, na.rm = T)
## [1] 0.4886
# proportion of interviewees who answered the Anonymity.Possible question
# who think it is possible to be completely anonymous on the Internet
table(limited$Anonymity.Possible)
##
## 0 1
## 475 278
278/(475 + 278)
## [1] 0.3692
# proportion of interviewees who answered the Tried.Masking.Identity
# question have tried masking their identity on the Internet
table(limited$Tried.Masking.Identity)
##
## 0 1
## 656 128
128/(656 + 128)
## [1] 0.1633
# proportion of interviewees who answered the Privacy.Laws.Effective
# question find United States privacy laws effective
table(limited$Privacy.Laws.Effective)
##
## 0 1
## 541 186
186/(541 + 186)
## [1] 0.2558
# largest number of interviewees that have exactly the same value in their
# Age variable AND the same value in their Info.On.Internet variable
max(table(limited$Age, limited$Info.On.Internet))
## [1] 6
# Use the tapply() function to obtain the summary of the Info.On.Internet
# value, broken down by whether an interviewee is a smartphone user.
tapply(limited$Info.On.Internet, limited$Smartphone, mean)
## 0 1
## 2.923 4.368
# proportion of smartphone users who answered the Tried.Masking.Identity
# question have tried masking their identity when using the Internet. And
# non-smartphone users
tapply(limited$Tried.Masking.Identity, limited$Smartphone, summary)
## $`0`
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. NA's
## 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.117 0.000 1.000 4
##
## $`1`
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. NA's
## 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.193 0.000 1.000 4
hist(limited$Age, breaks = 50)
plot(jitter(limited$Age), jitter(limited$Info.On.Internet))
