I'm not arguing it isn't true at all - just saying that anecdotes alone aren't going to prove this one way or another, at least not to my satisfaction.
> Ofc it's going to be anecdotal
Not really. People link to studies/research here frequently in comments.
Society doesn't tells us that anecdotal evidence is false, it tells us that it is generally not representative of the whole. What may have been true for your friends does not make it true for all. That doesn't deny your experience, just means you shouldn't make broad generalizations without data to support it.
But again, what you're saying here is purely anecdotal. Actually, it may not be, but I have absolutely no idea because the way you are presenting it is in a purely anecdotal way.
Well, you'd suspect that information, but you wouldn't know for sure. That's the difference between anecdotal evidence and a scientifically rigorous study.
The explanations you give are valuable for understanding why these trends exist, but they're not proof of their existence.
Your evidence is still an anecdote, it just involves a couple more people. Still potentially involves some amount of confirmation bias.
It stops being anecdotal when it moves away from your personal experience (including the anecdotal experience of your friends) and moves towards an actual scientific study.
For Reference:
> Anecdotal evidence is evidence from anecdotes, i.e., evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony.
Anecdotal evidence is not evidence! Especially anecdotal data reported by the subject. All you are showing is a fundemental misunderstanding of scientific process.
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