This research is laughable, along with a lot of research you see posted around on Facebook. The statistics wouldn't convince me to buy a better mattress. If I had seen that the professions that received the least amount of sleep and the profession that received the most were only about 30 minutes apart, I would assume that everyone got around the same amount of sleep. That thinking wouldn't make a mattress purchase a top priority. If enough people thought the same way I did, then that would make the publishing of the ad a waste of money and resources.
Research can be tricky. It can be used effectively to persuade people to do things like make a purchase, help decisions in court cases, or provide information for legislation. But it can also be used to manipulate people. I saw some research recently that opposed the Black Lives Matter movement. The research showed numbers indicating more white people are killed by police officers than black people. What the statistics didn't include was that there are six times as many white citizens in the United States than black citizens. So if the numbers were to be even, there theoretically should have been six times the amount of white people killed by police officers. Another example of bad statistics can be found in a Bill Burr stand-up, where he jokes that research shows that gun owners are more likely to get shot if they own a gun. He explains that is logical because you are more likely to drown if someone owns a pool.
The sleep research was poorly conducted by the mattress chain, but also should have been counter checked by The New York Times. The newspaper has a reputation to uphold that most definitely means more than Sleepy's does.
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