« Prev Next »
Social media and the sites associated with its impact have been household names for the better part of a decade, but never have they been as far-reaching. Facebook, for example, has 1.2 billion users, 86% of which are outside the United States (Facebook). Along with the giant Facebook, there are 370 other social media sites that have over 50,000 active users, ranging from online encyclopedias to games (Duggan, Maeve, Brenner, 2013). Since 2008, social media has been the most used feature on the web (Tancer). Essentially, most everything related to social media receives large public exposure. Social media has become an immensely powerful force in this decade, but inside the billions of statuses and trillions of likes, is there room for science?
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube offer scientists never before seen access to the general public. On Twitter, scientists like Stephan Hawking and Michio Kaku have over 200,000 followers and many universities regularly highlight their scientific achievements to tens or hundreds of thousands of followers.
Besides simply allowing information to spread farther and wider, it comes at no cost to the originating institution, giving science-focused sources a level of exposure that would have had a prohibitive cost. Making the information available to the public through a free medium allows those of us outside the scientific community to learn what's "going on in the lab." On the other side, individuals have seen a huge jump in no-cost science education. YouTube not only hosts thousands of science videos, including comprehensive series like Khan Academy or MIT's OpenCourseWare, but gives space for viewers to interact. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer free or low cost education to millions of users across the world. The integration of technology into the classroom has exponentially expanded the impact of such educational assets. With these resources, those with a recreational interest in science can expand their understanding and engagement with the scientific community, a paradigm that benefits both sides.
The major social media sites can feel overly casual for many, and more niche sites provide a solution. Our very own Scitable is a leading example of how a more moderated social environment is beneficial. Studies have shown that people learn best from people in a dynamic environment as opposed to the static words and diagrams in textbooks. To that end, like any great social media site, Scitable functions as more than the sum of its parts. Interactions and connections between users facilitated by features like article comments means that a paper or piece of writing can function as more than what is simply on the page.
Perhaps the best results can be gained from a combination of the major social media sites and the niche ones. Specialized sites who have a loyal base of readers that can be counted on to spread up-to-date information and articles can benefit from both the exposure huge sites offer and the focused content they host themselves.
References:
Duggan, Maeve, and Joanna Brenner. The Demographics of Social Media Users, 2013. Pew Research
Center's Internet & American Life Project, 2013.
Facebook. Facebook Reports Third Quarter 2013 Results. PR Newswire. Facebook, 30 Oct. 2013. Web. 11
Jan. 2014.
Tancer, Bill. Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters. New York: Hyperion,
2008. Print.
Image Credit: The Opte Project (Wikipedia), Gemmerich (Creative Commons)
Q for SciBytes bloggers and anyone else: Wondering...do you feel like you remember things better if you learned them in a "social" or some interactive digital environment? Any examples you can offer?