Over the past 10 years, the technological innovation affecting the way science and scientific findings are most often communicated is undoubtedly social media such as Facebook® and Twitter®.
The popularity of some researchers has been boosted more by social media than the science itself. Furthermore, given the quest for more research to have an impact on the field (which is absolutely correct), social media represents a potential window of opportunity and can deliver effective outcomes. However, scientists need to learn how to handle such an outlet for their work. How to handle means not only how to get visibility, followers, and popularity (notoriety in some cases) but also how to maximize this communication channel while maintaining scientific and ethical rigor. Indeed, the ease of widespread distribution of research findings and opinions raises the problem of avoiding misuse, disinformation, and manipulation to the masses. Sport science and sport medicine are not alone in the ever-expanding use of social media—it is common in all scientific fields and, indeed, walks of life. Social communities focusing on fitness, sport training, and nutrition are also widespread, and it is now common to see on the walls of training facilities pictures of infographics taken from internet. Other than being instruments for disseminating scientific information, social-media outlets are increasingly being used as learning platforms or for professional development (eg, “tweeting the meeting”). Finally, the information delivered by social media has a large public reach, but how the nonexpert or layperson interprets the information could be problematic and prone to misinterpretation in good or bad faith. Social media is also more and more used by scientific journals, even if their target is more concentrated on the scientific environment and hence oriented to an educated audience. Despite this, some social-media accounts, even scientific ones, are likely being followed by various groups and sectors such as the mainstream media.
PubMed
PubMed is technically not a social medium, but on social media it is now common to see links or comments referring to articles listed on PubMed. This electronic library, however, was created for the scientific community, not the general public. People not trained or educated in science are most often not able to judge the quality of an article by themselves and may not know the body of knowledge on the topic of the scientific paper, thus leading to a biased opinion. In addition, the easy accessibility of PubMed is increasing the “cherry picking” phenomenon (confirmation bias). For this reason, even more attention than in the past should be paid to abstracts to avoid claims not supported by the data or not reflecting the whole of scientific findings on a specific topic. More attention should be devoted to this by authors, but also reviewers, who should check the abstracts carefully given that the target audience may not necessarily be scientifically educated (potential use among general public).
Infographics
Indirectly connected to social media is another emerging initiative: the creation and dissemination, through social media, of so-called infographics. This is a form of visual communication targeted to a large audience to disseminate scientific findings and information, simplifying complex messages by transforming them into an easy and quick to understand format. However, again, there is an inherent risk of oversimplification or misinterpretation, especially by an audience not educated in science. Presenting and spreading the results of a study in this visually affecting way automatically gives the findings an overemphasis that is not always commensurate to the real strength of the data and design and does not highlight limitations in methods or discussion, for example. However, it is not possible to gather this from the infographic itself. Probably the best approach would be to primarily use infographics to communicate results of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. However, this raises other concerns related to the quality of these kinds of papers, too.
Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Social media broadcast not only the findings of original articles (more precisely, abstracts with the findings of original articles) but also the pyramid of evidence where systematic review and meta-analysis are presented as the best evidence available. However, “all that glitters is not gold.”1 Indeed, the quality of systematic review and meta-analysis depends on the quality of the studies included. Unfortunately, the quality of these studies is in some cases not even assessed using appropriate scales and checklists, thus making the interpretation and strength of the findings difficult to determine. This problem (questionable quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in sport) has been recently reported, for example, in football research.2 Representing these kinds of aggregated and synthesized findings is level I evidence (top level), and their quality is important not only for the infographic but also in scientific terms. However, the general audience and, sometimes, even researchers need to be aware of potential shortcomings of systematic reviews.
In conclusion, the explosion of social media in science certainly represents a potential powerful tool for disseminating knowledge and education among practitioners and general audiences. However, the power of this tool also brings with it potential problems, thus increasing the risk of misinforming the target audience (eg, oversimplification) or of misinterpretation by the target audience. For example, accepting the most recently tweeted abstract as representative of the entire scientific community in that area with no consideration of the previous literature, no evaluation of the quality of the study from which the information is taken, or no idea of the quality of the studies included in the systematic reviews meta-analysis is a potential shortcoming of social media. Researchers should be aware of the potential pitfalls and risk of social media and be careful when using this tool to disseminate findings and knowledge. They should resist or control the use of social media for marketing purposes. The world is changing and researchers should and must keep up with the times, but we must never forget that we remain researchers committed to accurate, transparent, and effective outcomes.
References
- 1.↑
Weir A, Rabia S, Ardern C. Trusting systematic reviews and meta-analyses: all that glitters is not gold! Br J Sports Med. 2016;50:1100–1101. PubMed doi:10.1136/bjsports-2015-095896
- 2.↑
Impellizzeri FM, McCall A. Football performance research: are we winning, drawing or losing? Paper presented at: World Conference on Science and Soccer; May 31–June 2, 2017; Rennes, France.
