WOMAN 1: Woo. Is my head cut off? That's fine. I'll just slouch. 

Thank you to KiwiCo for sponsoring this video. Visit kiwico.com/answerinprogress for your first month free. 

Hello. OK, take a look at this graph. If I were to tell you this graph represents the number of horror movie releases per year according to IMDb, what would you think? Maybe you would notice this increasing trend over time. Maybe you would wonder what caused these spikes. 

But more than anything else, you would see that the number of horror movies made increased dramatically around the year 2000. And you, being a pretty smart and curious person, may immediately start to wonder why? What happened around the turn of the millennium that just caused this endless spooky season? 

And I say all of this because that is exactly what I was wondering when I was looking at this data while making my last video. The moment I plotted this data, I was like, whoa. I went on to Slack and told Taha and Melissa, look at how spooky the 2000s are. 

But then I was like, wait a second. Am I reading graphs wrong? And then I deleted the post in shame because after four years and an expensive piece of paper telling the world I studied numbers, I'm still reading graphs wrong. 

And there's a strong chance that you might be doing the same. In fact, some studies show that anywhere from 33% to 60% of the population is struggling with the skills required to read graphs. And that would be fine if it was advanced calculus. Despite what your math teacher might say, nobody's out here calculating integrals in their daily life. 

But that's not true for graphs. Six of the seven most visited stories in The Washington Post's history have been graphics. And it's pretty obvious why. Because a good graph can unlock a lot of information that might otherwise be trapped in confusing and unappealing text. But that's only true if you're reading graphs right. So how do you do that? 

[UPBEAT MUSIC] 

How are you? 

WOMAN 2: Good, how are you? 

WOMAN 1: Good. I'm back today. 

WOMAN 2: No, thank you. Enjoy. 

WOMAN 1: Thank you so much. Take care. 

Did not think about how this background and this book are the same color. Can you see it? Can you-- can you-- listen, I was going to do a whole bit, change clothes, act like I just bought this book, but I didn't. I got this a few weeks ago. It's just been sitting on my bedside table for the past while. 

Anyway, I don't think that the right move is to get everybody to watch a crash course on graph reading because I don't think that'll work. However, I do think we could all do better to recognize the common pitfalls that can get anyone. 

Luckily, many of them are neatly outlined in this book, How Charts Lie, by Alberto Cairo. Wait a second, wait a second. Ha. Oh, that's called contrast. Anyway, a lot of those common pitfalls are neatly outlined in this book, How Charts Lie. It's a really easy read with some great examples. 

Also, because it's about data visualization, there are pictures. But in case graphic literacy isn't your only problem and you can't read books, here's the gist. A graph has five ways of misleading you-- poor design, dubious data, insufficient data, concealing uncertainty, and suggesting misleading patterns. 

Designing graphs is hard. Every decision, from colors to axes to labels, they all affect the story the graph tells and how clearly it tells it. I've not only made mistakes reading graphs, I've also made plenty of mistakes designing them. Not every poorly designed graph you see out there is out of malice. Sometimes it's just hard. 

But a good design needs to strike a balance between simplicity and accuracy. As a reader, you need to make sure that the design choices complement the data rather than exaggerate. But there isn't really a point in complementing the data if the data is bad or dubiously sourced. If a graph doesn't have a known source, it's just a picture. To avoid falling for bad data, you need to make sure that the data source exists and that it's also credible. And if it is, you should also make sure that the data and the graph are telling the same story. That means making sure that the graph isn't cherry picking statistics or burying an important point in a forest of irrelevant numbers. 

And I'm saying numbers, not facts, for a reason because I think that there is this fundamental misunderstanding of science, studies, statistics, and graphs in that some people believe that they present these undeniable truths. That isn't the case. 

All of science is about testing a hypothesis. Some are rigorously tested with consistent results. Others are garbage. But regardless, there is always some level of uncertainty. So you need to entertain the fact that with any graph, there is some possibility that the numbers in it aren't true. 

Finally, a graph can suggest misleading patterns because ultimately, while a graph can illustrate data and inspire new, meaningful questions, it can also pretty quickly mislead us into seeing things that aren't there. 

In this book, let me find the quote. Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. There we go. Found it. "Don't read too much into a chart, particularly if you're reading what you'd like to read." I did that. That is where I seriously boofed it with that graph I showed you at the beginning. Because I was making a video about horror movies and how our personal fears might intersect with them, and I saw this graph, and I know about some things that happened around the year 2000. You probably do, too, that I wanted to see and be like, oh, that is a sign that horror movies are a direct reflection, a direct result, of our own human fears. 

And so after the year 2000, when certain things went down, we started making more horror. And I got so excited and enticed by that idea that I didn't really stop to consider other possibilities. Because if alongside those horror movie releases, you also plot out all movie releases, you see this. There was just more movies being made. There was nothing special about horror movies. 

I was just wrong. I was just flat-out wrong, and it's embarrassing. I don't know, it just made me uncomfortable because I consider myself a pretty fact-based person, and the idea that I was so able to quickly warp my sense of reality to fit a narrative I believed in, that's messed up. 

There's a metaphor in there. It's probably not even a metaphor. You got it. You get what I'm trying to say. It's not just about graphs. However, I think it serves as this nice reminder that graph literacy is just like any other source of literacy. It's a skill, one that we can both build on to become better, more informed people. Anyway, that got weirdly deep. 

Speaking of literature, now I'm just wondering if graphs are language. Can you write graph fanfiction? That's a thought. Stop, that's embarrassing. Leave your answers in the comments below. 

Thank you to KiwiCo for sponsoring this video. If you think graphs are a cool way of making data accessible, just wait until you hear how KiwiCo is making learning fun, hands on, and accessible for kids. 

I got the doodle crate where I can get creative with screen printing and design my own custom backpack. You're about to see a work of art, so in case you didn't know, KiwiCo is a subscription crate service for kids and young people that exposes them to topics in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. 

Each box comes with all of the supplies you'll need for the month's project. Really detailed but kid-friendly instructions. Look at this. Incredible. Got a Chevron, sunglasses, a French bulldog. I think I'm going to go with the Chevron. It looks a little bit like the Answer in Progress logo. 

It's not just doodle crates, by the way. They have eight subscription lines catering to different age groups and topics. And when I say different age groups, I mean all of them. From zero months to 104 years old, there's fun for everyone. 

OK, ready. So we're going to do a few passes. Wow. With the holidays right around the corner, a KiwiCo subscription would be an incredible option for younger family members or family friends. It's really hard to beat the gift of a new learning experience every month and a lifetime of curiosity. If you want to try your first month of KiwiCo for free, head on over to kiwico.com/answerinprogress or click the first link in the description. Look how pretty it is.