Video: https://www.tiktok.com/@distilledscience/video/7504294710597520670
Transcript
This account has 40 million followers, the post has tens of millions of views, and it's a lie. I asked you guys last time for reasons why you guys would or would not trust it, and you had some good responses. Usually I'd just show you guys evidence for why it is or isn't true, but there are way too many of these sorts of posts for me to ever cover them all. So I want to teach you guys a framework for how to think about posts like this and how to evaluate them for yourselves. Welcome to the Claim Clinic. Episode 1. C. posts from an account with more followers than Canada has people. But no scientific credentials. L. Language. This one is a big time saver if you don't want to have to research every claim yourself. Saying that K is the most negatively received response is an absolute sort of language that no study would ever use. Without adding something like, amongst the 12 responses we measured. This language implies that they tested every single possible response, which makes no sense. Remember... Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Next, assumptions. Are these texts between friends, coworkers, partners? What age range and culture? Was this a two-text conversation or a long one? What type of message was it in response to? You can't just assume that findings from one context hold to any other, let alone all of them. Now we'll cover I and M together, impact and measurement. They never say what emotionally triggering means, how it was measured, and what the relative scale was. Technically, 2% more triggering would still be the most. And finally, Journal of Mobile Communication. But that's actually an engineering journal focused on cellular networks and satellite communication systems. Not communication psychology. This is a classic example of an AI making up a source that sounds legit but is actually bupkis. But what does this stat actually come from? Probably this 2022 survey from Preply, a language tutoring app, which did seem to find K as being the most passive aggressive from amongst these nine options. It didn't even mention emotional triggers. anywhere. And industry surveys fall very low on our hierarchy of evidence. Final verdict? 0.5 out of 6. Not science. If you enjoyed this sort of systematic breakdown, let me know in the comments, and tag me in any post you want analyzed.
Additional notes
❓✋ What is the most “emotionally triggering,” basic text that you hate getting? NOTE: Posts like this might SEEM harmless. Who cares about what text responses were the worst in some meaningless survey, right? It’s not hurting anyone! But that’s why I used this post as an example, so as to not trigger anyone’s identify beliefs in a way that would make them defensive and ignore the framework itself. The GOAL is to all of you fellow scienceers to view ALL posts with the same critical eye, whether or not they confirm or contradict your existing beliefs. #science #education #stem #psychology #distilledscience
References
- 2022 Preply survey mentioned in transcript; direct URL not listed in workbook.
- “Journal of Mobile Communication” source described as AI-generated/misattributed in transcript; no DOI/PMID listed in workbook.