In this age of “fake news,” many people want to believe in the validity of scientific studies presented in the news every day. We also love that a glass of red wine burns as many calories as an hour at the gym.
But that’s not exactly true.
News outlets and media companies have now taken to generalizing and oversimplifying scientific studies in order to make it flashier and eye-catching: turning important research into clickbait. Of course, everyone wants a good hook for their segment or their article, but science should not be turned into some flashy competition.
Now more than ever, scientists are pressured to produce studies that will please the public and the media, which in turn makes them design studies that show correlations between two popular items, like red wine and losing weight or coffee and carcinogens.
Remember the studies that came forward about cell phones causing cancer and how other studies came forward that produced opposite results? Well, it's entirely possible for scientists to manipulate data and results so they produce results that fit their hypothesis or produce results that are “ground-breaking.” And the news LOVES this.
An absolutely amazing YouTube video everyone should watch is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’s segment on scientific studies. He goes in depth about the importance of replicative studies, which aren’t flashy. In fact, they’re probably the most boring studies to read because they are literally just retesting hypotheses and theories that were already done by other scientists. However, they are the most important studies to conduct because if you keep replicating studies and they come to the same conclusion over and over again, then the results gain more reliability and more validity.
Science is built into the fabric of our society and its importance can not be overstated. But if it keeps getting treated like some fantastic way to pick and choose facts and figures, journalists and news anchors will ruin the validity of the process. If scientists keep feeling pressure to produce new and exciting results, then the ever-important process of retesting hypotheses will fall into the shadows.
Clickbait headlines are easy to spot. If it seems exaggerative, flashy, or eye-catching, then it most likely is selectively picked for just that. (And yes, I realize the amazing irony of my headline. Don't @ me.)
Science is more than page views. Science is more than clickbait.