Is our social media content damaging science?

Among producers making educational content, there’s lots of grumbling that trends in online formats are doing science education a disservice. Are they right?

This is the same challenge that has faced journalists and science communicators for decades. It’s not inherently a ‘social media’ problem, although this medium does tempt you to the shallows of communication more than ever. It’s worth thinking about how you want to represent science in your content.

Over the course of my Fellowship, a number of the experts I interviewed — in particular, but not exclusively, video producers specialising in high quality YouTube science video — expressed concern that the way science is presented through much of our social media content devalues it. They asked whether, in those 20-second text-dominated square videos about a new ‘breakthrough’, any real learning is happening. By reducing science stories, discoveries and concepts to these visual soundbites, are we doing science a disservice?

The certainty of science

This is one of the most common complaints: we’re portraying science as a series of certainties. Rather than a process of gradual progression and ever-improving clarity, we only allow ourselves space to present the perfect conclusions — none of the mistakes, failure, or subtlety that science is built on.

Is there any learning at all?

Is anyone learning anything worthwhile from social content that’s pared the story down so far that it fits into two sentences? Any actual information transfer? The content, that presents only results with no process, is often so passive and fleeting that at best it’s instantly forgettable and so shallow it becomes meaningless, and at worst it’s actively destructive to people’s understanding of what real science is.

Content like this serves an algorithm far more than it serves an actual audience. Do you want to create content that will get more ‘views’, or content that will really engage, educate and inspire?

Decoration, not depth

Are your visual aids helping convey information, or just decoration? We all use visuals to draw attention and brighten up a message, and that’s fine, but a few people suggested that the more we lean on decoration, the more we lean towards shallow content that dazzles without imparting any knowledge. In many ways, the success of factual content online has led to an over-emphasis of the superficial and ‘fun’, which slot so much more seamlessly into the online landscape than nuance and balance. As science-focused content moulds to a visual language of bigger on-screen elements and brighter colours, it’s perhaps rewarded with views and fleeting attention, but at the expense of style and substance choices that might achieve better communication.

Are they right? Is social media RUINING science?

No. The challenges and complaints here are largely the same as have existed as long as science communication has: some of the earliest science lectures were accused of pandering to the masses with a focus on the sensational, newspaper articles have forever painted misleading pictures with their headlines, and research years in the making has always been condensed to 30-word stubs in magazine columns.

What is particularly unique about the current situation that even communicators at research centres, universities etc are feeling the pressure to create this ‘light’ content (although there’s solid evidence that much of the media’s sensationalist science reporting originates from press releases, so perhaps it’s even less novel than I thought. An old monster wearing a new hat). Culpability is spreading, and it’s easier than ever to fall into the pattern of condensing and minimising science to the point of meaninglessness.

What can I do?

As with many of the issues this project tackles, stopping to make a conscious decision about what you’re doing will go a long way, and is something lots of us don’t do enough in our fast-paced, reactive roles. Think about what you want your content to achieve, and don’t be pulled unthinkingly into formats that are better suited to selling than educating (unless that’s what you’re trying to do). Create videos, posts, and images that contribute to the appreciation of science that you want people to embrace.

This post forms part of the publication, ‘Communicating Science with Social Media’, which is the product of a 2017 Winston Churchill Fellowship. Read more about the project here, and for more about me, including examples of my own work, visit anthony-lewis.com.