People on social media serve as the best
reviewers of our work! #RealTimeReviewer2
Khor Waiho
Institute of Tropical Aquaculture and Fisheries,
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus,
Terengganu 21030, Malaysia.
Email: [email protected]
Many current social issues stem from
humanity’s struggle with nuance. Social
media is not known for respecting or
encouraging nuance, but science is. And
if scientific discussion can add a drop of
nuance to the internet, who knows how far
the ripples could go.
Michael Raitor
Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Social media allows me to crowdsource
solutions to problems. Troubleshooting
programming bugs has never been easier.
Ming-Ju Amy Lyu
Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031,
China. Email: [email protected]
Social media platforms can serve as
effective science communication if
research summaries, outcome measures,
and expert advice are sourced from and
linked to peer-reviewed journals, scientific
SCIENCE science.org 11 FEBRUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6581 609
magazines, and websites of reputable
research organizations.
Sarita Kumari
School of Social Sciences, Devi Ahilya
Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452001,
India. Email: [email protected]Science relies on the public as much as
the public relies on science. Social media
empowers scientists with the tools to pro-
vide objective scientific discoveries directly
to the public, without intermediaries (such
as the media) that may be prone to modify
the information.
Isabel Marín Beltrán
Centro de Ciências do Mar do Algarve, Universidade
do Algarve, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal.
Email: [email protected]On social media, researchers connect with
young viewers directly and share crucial,
real-time updates. The scientific com-
munity should seize this opportunity to
democratize research, give voice to diverse
scientists, and encourage the next genera-
tion to pursue science.
Jiajia Fu
Whittle School and Studios, Washington, DC
20008, USA. Email: [email protected]Attractive infographics and videos can
stimulate the interest of users. Moreover,
science communication through social
media in different regional languages can
quickly reach otherwise overlooked people.
Charu Lata
Traditional Knowledge Studies Division, Council
of Scientific and Industrial Research–National
Institute of Science Communication & Policy
Research, New Delhi, Delhi 110067, India.
Email: [email protected]Science communication using social
media is convenient. In China, scientists
from different institutes establish WeChat
discussion groups, allowing them to share
novel ideas and discuss research progress
whenever and wherever possible.
Yongsheng Ji
Division of Life Sciences and Medicine,
University of Science and Technology
of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Email: [email protected]Evil
A growing number of self-appointed
experts peddling misinformation drown
out the voices of true scientists, who argue
with facts, not opinions.
Mpho Diphago Stanley Lekgoathi
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.
Email: [email protected]The mental health costs of misunder-
standings, attacks, and endless scrollingare real. Let’s hope that new platforms
with better incentives emerge.
J. Steen Hoyer
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural
Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
08901, USA. Twitter: @jshoyerWhy are we conditioning ourselves to
think by digesting large volumes of short,
simple snippets? The short-term benefit
of a reaction isn’t worth the long-term
risk: losing the ability, and desire, to think
deeply and nonlinearly.
Stuart Parker
Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, Montana
Technological University, Butte, MT 59701, USA.
Email: [email protected]Child: A good scientist is smart and hard-
working. Grad student: A good scientist
is competitive, persistent, lucky. Social
media: A good scientist is witty, popular,
and attention-seeking. Sometimes I
wonder if intelligence and hard work
still matter.
Anna Uzonyi
Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann
Institute of Science, Rehovot, Central Israel
7610001, Israel. Email: [email protected]A post is not a publication, a retweet is
not a citation, and going viral is not verifi-
cation. #ScrollingIsNotPeerReview
Morgan Daly Dedyo
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104,
USA. Email: [email protected]Social media platforms build algorithms
to display contents that maximize engage-
ment, rewarding sensationalism and
soundbites and penalizing more nuanced
discourse on complex issues.
Edward Lau
University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora,
CO 80010, USA. Twitter: @LauLabColoradoWith scientific research, the devil is in the
details. With social media, there’s a lot of
devil with little space for details.
Samuel Nathan Kirshner
School of Information Systems and Technology
Management, University of New South Wales,
Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Email: [email protected]On social media, experts and non-experts
share the same microphone. Because pre-
cise scientific language is usually not very
appealing, the non-experts’ posts are more
likely to go viral than the experts’ posts,
and most readers can’t tell the difference.
Wagner Eduardo Richter
Department of Chemistry, Federal University of
Technology–Paraná, Ponta Grossa, Paraná, Brazil.
Twitter: @richterwe
10.1126/science.abo2409SCIENCE AND SOCIAL MEDIA