SINGAPORE: On Monday (Mar 13), The Straits Times published an article based on a report from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) regarding food prices all over Singapore titled “Prata is cheaper in the west while kopi is cheaper in central S’pore: IPS study.”
On ST’s Facebook page, the article was linked to an infographic using bar graphs showing the “Cost of eating out in Singapore,” which left some netizens scratching their heads.
The infographic shows the average cost of a lunch meal at hawker centres, coffee shops and foodcourts in the country’s Central, Northeast, West, East and North regions, with Bukit Timah having the cheapest meal on average ($5.28) and Sembawang having the most expensive lunch meal ($6.38), with the difference only a little over a dollar.
Indeed, price differences across the regions are all very small, which is probably one of the points to take note of.
On the article itself, the infographic is a little different.
And when one Reddit user posted the infographic from Facebook on r/singapore, many were unimpressed, to say the least.
“This is lousy infographics,” one netizen wrote.
This was answered by a Reddit user who wrote, “I know right.. what’s the point of having the bar charts when the difference isn’t really shown.”
Another netizen added, “There’s no point for the bar, the number is literally righht there. There’s no scale on the bar either so what’s the point of it?”
“The color bar essentially is useless,” chimed in another.
Another added, “I didn’t even notice they were comparative bars. I thought it’s just for aesthetic reasons.”
One wrote, “lol the infographic is useless af, might as well put in excel sheet and call it a day.”
Yet another Reddit user wrote, “I don’t disagree with most of the methodologies , just that the second follow up is kinda bad and the headline of this infographic is misrepresenting the study.”
The full IPS report is published here.
/TISG