Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

The reward and risk of social media for academics

We are three academics who are active on social media. We explore the motivations for and benefits of engaging with social media, as well as its costs and risks. Overall, we believe this engagement to be a net benefit for us, our employers and for wider society.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Key, Q., Ahn, Y.-Y. & Sugimoto, C. R. A systematic identification and analysis of scientists on twitter. PLOS ONE 12, e0175368 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Bastian, H. Who’s who on science Twitter and who counts? PLOS BLOGS https://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/2017/04/28/whos-who-on-science-twitter-and-who-counts (2017).

  3. Côté, I. M. & Darling, E. S. Scientists on Twitter: preaching to the choir or signing from the rooftops. FACETS 3, 682–694 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Gempf, K. L. Announcing the 2019 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference winners. RCS http://blogs.rsc.org/rscpublishing/2018/12/10/rsc-twitter-poster-conference-2019 (2018).

  5. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. ‘My Science Inquiry’ Sixteenth Report of Session 2017–2019. parliament https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmsctech/1716/1716.pdf (2019).

  6. Britton, B. [Tweet]. Twitter https://twitter.com/BMatB/status/1123820553389916165 (1 May 2019).

  7. Jarreau, P. et al. Using selfies to challenge public stereotypes of scientists. PLOS ONE 14, e0216625 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Mccullagh, E. A. et al. Request a woman scientist: a database for diversifying the public face of science. PLOS Biol. 17, e3000212 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Gaston, N. [Tweet]. Twitter https://twitter.com/nicgaston/status/1123437220990472192 (30 Apr 2019).

  10. Hall, N. The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists. Genome Biol. 15, 424 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Barnes, C. The h-index debate: an introduction for librarians. J. Acad. Librariansh. 43, 487–494 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Rownland, I. Is it time to bury the h-index? The Bibliomagician https://thebibliomagician.wordpress.com/2018/03/23/is-it-time-to-bury-the-h-index (2018).

  13. Minasny, B. et al. Citations and the h index of soil researchers and journals in the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. PeerJ 1, e183 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Malesios, C. C. & Psarakis, S. Comparison of the h-index for different fields of research using bootstrap methodology. Qual. Quant. 48, 521–545 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. University and College Union petitions. University of Leeds statutes: no sackers’ charter. UCU http://speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/university-of-leeds-statutes-no-sackers-charter/ (2018).

  16. Swansea University. Swansea University, social media guidelines. Swansea University https://www.swansea.ac.uk/media/Social%20Media%20Guidelines.pdf (2019).

  17. Grand, A. et al. ”We muddle our way through”: shared and distributed expertise in digital engagement with research. J. Sci. Commun. 15, 1–23 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Crockett, M. J. Moral outrage in the digital age. Nat. Hum. Behav. 1, 769–771 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Chapman, E. [Tweet]. Twitter https://twitter.com/DrEOChapman/status/1126575152412672001 (9 May 2019).

Download references

Acknowledgements

B.B. acknowledges funding of his research fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering. The authors thank Emma Chapman for insightful discussions, and remind everyone that tweets often contain typographical errors associated with autocorrect. The authors also thank the 40 or so Twitter users who provided reviewer comments, via google docs, prior to publication of this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ben Britton, Chris Jackson or Jessica Wade.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

B.B., C.J. and J.W. are members of TIGERinSTEMM.

Additional information

Related links

Imperial College London Social Media Guidelines: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/staff/tools-and-reference/web-guide/tools/social-media/

The authors of this article can be found on Twitter: @bmatb, @seis_matters, @jesswade

The Inclusion Group for Equity in Research in STEMM: https://www.tigerinstemm.org/

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Britton, B., Jackson, C. & Wade, J. The reward and risk of social media for academics. Nat Rev Chem 3, 459–461 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-019-0121-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-019-0121-3

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing