Is this HARD evidence that the INTERNET is hurting the Watch Tower Society?

by cedars 87 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cedars

  Hi everyone

  Some of you may recall my fairly recent attempt to find out using available data whether or not the internet is having a tangible impact on the Society's activities. My thread for this is as follows:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/216464/1/Its-official-the-internet-IS-the-Watchtowers-nemesis

  Now that the latest figures from the 2012 Yearbook are out (thanks to jwfacts), I have spent most of today trying to drill down deeper and get as accurate a picture as possible as to whether or not the theory can be proven.

  I found the following website which offers very recent country-by-country internet penetration figures, as recent as March 2011 (approximately half way through the 2010/2011 service year):

  http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

  I took these figures, and merged them with the 2011 Service Year Report of Jehovah's Witnesses Worldwide, a PDF of which was posted on this forum by jwfacts. This was a pretty painstaking process, because in order to get accurate figures I needed to copy down the publisher figures for each country, so that I could get accurate averages for each group of penetration figures (if that makes sense).

  For the sake of completeness, there were 19 countries listed in the Worldwide Report that did NOT have internet penetration figures published on the aforementioned site. There were as follows: Azores, Bonaire, Chuuk, Curacao, Kosrae, Madeira, Nevis, Pohnpei, Rodrigues, Rota, Saba, Saint Eustatius, Saint Kitts, Saint Maarten, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saipan, Tahiti, Tinian and Yap.

  I have also had to ommit the "30 Other Lands" for statistical purposes, although I am open to the idea of running these figures through similar analysis if somebody on here can tell me with some authority which countries those are?

  Anyway, before everyone falls asleep from boredom, here is the final graph which I feel shows overwhelmingly that the WEAKER the internet penetration, the GREATER the growth of publishers....

  In case you'd like to check how I've arrived at the above figures, I will post the statistics for each of the "Internet penetration groups" depicted in the above graph.

  These are the countries with 90 to 100% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 80 to 89.99% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 70 to 79.99% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 60 to 69.99% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 50 to 59.99% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 40 to 49.99% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 30 to 39.99% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 20 to 29.99% internet penetration:

  

  These are the countries with 10 to 19.99% internet penetration:

  

  And FINALLY, these are the countries in which the growth is truly prolific - those with LESS that 10% internet penetration:

  

  So what do you think guys? Is this TANGIBLE proof that the Internet is impacting on the growth of the organization?

  Let me know what you think!

  Cedars
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  Anony Mous

  It is tangible proof that living in a richer country gives you less need to be involved in something that promises you a better future. If you look at the growth figures in the 70's-90's you'll see the same pattern, rich (well educated) countries have less growth than the poor (not so educated) countries.
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  flipper

  CEDARS- THanks for the research. I'd say yes indeed, that it shows the Internet IS having an effect on slower growth of JW's in countries where Internet is available. The other thing about 3rd world countries as well is that not only do they not have Internet access but the illiteracy rate and people perhaps being uneducated has an extreme effect on their vulnerability to cult influence like the WT society & Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't have any hard figures or evidence to support that. I'm just saying from what I've seen or read in news reports that it may be so. Good job, thanks for sharing this
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  Yan Bibiyan

  Cedars,

  Are the values on your X-axis transposed. The overall graph shows the biggest increase 4.58% in the countries with 90-100% internet penetration. In this case, the internet supports growth...awwww scary

  Great effort, no doubt. Numerical analysis looks sound, just the graph contradicts it, IMO.

  I love the countries with insignificant number of publishers (i.e. 200-500) where the addition of few people makes for a sizeable increase in the percentage points.

  "Brothers, we have experienced a 300 percent growth in some lands (added the spouse and both kids to the 2 brothers)"!!!!
• 

  cedars

  Well spotted Yan Bibiyan - well spotted, I only just noticed that myself.

  I'll post a revised graph in a short while...
• 

  stuckinamovement

  Great work Cedars. It seems like there is a definite trend with a little bump at 30-39%. Could you aggregate the totals and show a total trendline as in % growth per internet penetration? It is little wonder that the WTS depicts a Cat 5 cable as a snake. It is a snake that has bitten them.

  SIAM
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  Yan Bibiyan

  I'll post a revised graph in a short while

  Maybe you should leave it as is. If the Brooklyn spies check it out, they may push internet use to the R&F
• 

  cedars

  
• 

  Yan Bibiyan

  It is little wonder that the WTS depicts a Cat 5 cable as a snake. It is a snake that has bitten them.

  If the Cat 5 cable is the snake that has bitten them, then I hope Cat 6, Cat6A and Fiber (more bandwidth) will eventualy be the boa that will swallow for breakfast their rat a$$es..
• 

  cedars

  Thanks everyone!

  SIAM - "Could you aggregate the totals and show a total trendline as in % growth per internet penetration?" Ouch, that made my head hurt! I understand the trendline, but not much else. I will gladly email you my stats so you can play around with them yourself if you like? Just PM me.

  Cedars