The scale of each map is independent, and differs by an order of magnitude from the "lonely" top row to the "not lonely" bottom row.
A charitable view would be that they consider each category independent.
Another charitable view would be that they're focused on showing trends, not "absolute value of loneliness", and that you can view the order of maps Always-Usually-Rarely-Never to be an additional dimension. This would have better fit a linear layout, but as they note in the caption, a fifth map "wouldn't fit"; they are constrained by article layout.
If you think the WP is simply trying to push the premise of the article, that there is a "Loneliness Epidemic", then you may enjoy the book `How to Lie with Maps` by Monmonier:
driggs|11 months ago
A charitable view would be that they consider each category independent.
Another charitable view would be that they're focused on showing trends, not "absolute value of loneliness", and that you can view the order of maps Always-Usually-Rarely-Never to be an additional dimension. This would have better fit a linear layout, but as they note in the caption, a fifth map "wouldn't fit"; they are constrained by article layout.
If you think the WP is simply trying to push the premise of the article, that there is a "Loneliness Epidemic", then you may enjoy the book `How to Lie with Maps` by Monmonier:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo274005...