📰 83% Burnout Rate Sounds Like Fake News To Me

Haystack published results of their survey that makes rounds over the Internet with a statement that 83% of developers suffer from burnout.

Now, burnout is a serious thing, and it should be treated seriously. But on the first sight the number of 83% is ridiculous.

I am sure Haystack, the company that promotes its software as a burnout preventer has a good intentions and the survey seems generally ok. But what brings my attention is this chart from the survey results:

As you can see numbers add up to 100% suggesting the presented answers were all there were in the questionnaire.

I was doing some surveys in my life. I am not in any way a survey expert. But it is very troubling why there were these answers only:

• To a great extend
• To a moderate extend
• To a small extend
• Not at all
• Don’t know

As far I understand surveys you should give a balanced list of answers where the central one is neutral. Something like this: