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Calculating the standard deviation of 5 numbers by hand takes a couple of minutes, but real-world datasets in sports, medicine, and finance contain thousands of entries.
Modern statistics relies on technology like graphing calculators and spreadsheets to compute these dispersion metrics in milliseconds.
How do you tell a graphing calculator to analyze a raw list of data?

Graphing Calculator: 1-Var Stats

On standard graphing calculators, you enter your data into a list (such as L1L_1) under the STAT Edit menu, then run 1-Var Stats under the STAT Calc menu.
The output gives you two different standard deviations: SxSx is the sample standard deviation (which divides by nβˆ’1n - 1), while Οƒx\sigma x is the population standard deviation (which divides by NN).
Because almost all real studies analyze a sample collected from a larger group rather than every single subject in existence, SxSx is the value you will use in nearly every statistical problem.
What if your data is stored in a spreadsheet like Google Sheets or Excel instead?

Spreadsheets: Built-in Formulas

Spreadsheet applications process data stored in columns using built-in functions that instantly compute summary statistics for any cell range.
Use the formula =STDEV.S(range) for sample standard deviation and =STDEV.P(range) for population standard deviation.