Here's a report from the Washington Post, entitled "Amazon, can we have our name back?". The journalist interviewed several women named Alexa, reporting about their experiences related to having the same name as the popular digital assistant. For example,
Alexa Morales wore her name proudly. But after Amazon launched its voice service, also called Alexa, in November 2014, people began speaking to Morales differently. She said they made jokes about her name, giving her commands or asking her questions in a robotic tone. “When I hear my name now, it’s not good thoughts, it’s like, tensing,” said Morales, 28, a pharmacy technician and student in Bridgeport, Conn.
Much of the article is dedicated to the negative experiences (including harassment) that people with the name Alexa have had. Several Alexas have chosen to adopt nicknames. One psychologist was quoted as saying,
“They’re sort of growing up with the communication that their name is associated with a servant role,” Christopher Kearney, a professor of psychology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said in an interview. “If a teacher is saying something derogatory, even if it’s just as a joke, or it’s to change their name, or … allows other kids to participate in that, it can create a lot of psychological damage.”
Aside from these detailed experiences, one part of this article can be used as an example of an interrupted time-series design.
Nearly 130,000 people in the United States have the name Alexa. It gained popularity after singer Billy Joel and model Christie Brinkley named their daughter Alexa in 1985. In 2015, more than 6,000 baby girls in the United States were named Alexa, according to a Washington Post analysis of Social Security Administration data.
After Amazon chose Alexa as the wake word of its voice service, the name’s popularity plummeted. In 2020, only about 1,300 babies were given the name.
It's much easier to think about this result if you see the graph of it, so I urge you to visit the Washington Post story and scroll down to the line graph before reading on.
a) In this interrupted time series design, what is the quasi-independent variable? What is the dependent variable?
b) What do you think--to what extent can the baby name data in the article support the causal claim that "Amazon's Echo devices caused a decrease in people naming their babies Alexa"?
Specifically, the graph shows covariance and temporal precedence--Amazon's Alexa device is associated with a subsequent, dramatic drop in the number of babies named Alexa. But what about internal validity--are there alternative explanations we can consider for this drop?
c) What are your thoughts after reading the article? Do you that Amazon should change the Echo's default "wake word?"