Can an opinion be a fact with the use of survey?

[GerardSant]

the question may be vague or confusing. I'm making a research paper and ofcourse a statement that:
"There are some people who consumed their time on Internet"
&
"There are other others who use Facebook to feel sleepy at night."

I know it's an opinion. But what if I make some survey to some students around the school? will this statement become a fact since there is a backed up evidence?
Thanks in advance for helping

[Robert]

No, an opinion can never be fact, it sounds confusing , its like : his favorite color is blue, hers is red, in their own opinion, the colors they chose are the best and its a fact they each have their own favorite color.
See the difference?
Its a fact that [fill in the blank] is an opinion, but that doesn't make what the opinion is a fact.
I feel like I'm talking in circles lol
Now if someone was witness to something, that's different, they are recalling events.
Or if someone guesses at something or says something works and you test it, that's more of a hypothesis which uses a formula to create theories, its not exactly the same, but I do understand , at least I think, what you're asking.

[Gary H]

You can certainly reference facts such as: "The results of my survey of 3 of my friends found 66.67% of this population use Facebook to feel sleepy at night." That is a fact assuming that 2 of your 3 friends did actually select that answer.

This highlights one of the "problems" with data from surveys. If you skip the details and claim that "66% of young people use Facebook to feel sleepy", this is dishonest because you are not providing enough detail for readers to fairly evaluate the significance.

Even if you had gotten survey results from 1000 randomly selected students from 50 schools, the "significance" of your conclusions may be questionable depending on how the survey questions were written. For example, if you reworded the first option to: "The internet is ruining my life", more students might select that other option simply because they do NOT feel the internet is ruining their life and "feeling sleepy" is the only other option.

The unfortunate facts are that conducting valid surveys is very complicated and it is possible to conduct surveys that will tend to confirm whatever the group conducting the survey wants to prove.

The moral of the story is to not believe everything you read about survey results.

[jcr]

You can certainly provide evidence that what you say is true - after all, you're not saying that some opinion is true just because a lot of people share it. Your "opinion" here is that a lot of people behave in a certain way, which is quite a different matter, and something that can be supported to a certain degree by a well-conducted survey.

You need to be careful in reporting results of surveys though. A great deal depends on how they are designed and conducted, how many people are asked, who they are, and HOW they're asked. Survey results can be very biased through poor survey design or bias on the part of the surveyer.

You would be greatly overstepping yourself, for example, if you reported "People tend to use Facebook to feel sleepy at night" as a fact just because you asked 10 people in your school and 6 said yes. However, you could report, as a fact, "Of 10 students at XXX High School, 6 answered 'Yes' to the question 'Do you use Facebook to feel sleepy at night?'" and then base your subsequent arguments on that.

Hope this helps.

[busterwasmycat]

the existence of a specific opinion can be a fact. the factuality of the opinion itself would be a separate question.

[Tarek]

The word "opinion" gives a connotation of it not being fact. Therefore, the nature of the word opinion means that it can never be factual. If you know more than one person who uses Facebook to feel sleepy at night, then your "opinion" is based on real facts and is consequently a fact. If you want to say, "Majority of the people in (a setting) use Facebook to feel sleepy at night," then you need a survey to assert this, with appropriate statistical analyses included.

Thank you

[Roger]

"There are some people who consumed their time on Internet"
By finding at least one person for whom this is true it becomes a fact.
Even if no one else in the universe uses the internet it is still a true statement if one person uses up time on the internet.
:-)