
Online comments hurt science understanding, study finds - absconditus
http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/online-comments-hurt-science-understanding-study-finds-ib88cor-185610641.html
======
luu
I've often wondered how most people read comments. There's something funny you
see in voting patterns if you make a comment, and then someone replies with
refutation, and then the refutation is refuted, and so on.

Fist, you see your comment get upvoted. But, if someone replies with a
refutation that uses the word because[1], or is otherwise convincing, and
calls you an idiot, you'll start to get downvoted (downvotes are rarer if
there's no invective). That happens even if the 'refutation' consists purely
of blatant logical fallacies. I tend not to reply to those, because it seems
like a waste of time, so I'll often get downvoted to or below 0 before someone
replies to the reply, at which point my comment score will start climbing
upwards again.

This is the only site I regularly comment on, because I don't know of any
public forum that has a similarly high level of discussion. I'm not sure the
level of reading is the same, though. Skimming is dangerous. I do it, too,
unfortunately.

There's actually been a set of studies that have shown that people are more
likely to be convinced by nonsense they've read if they're distracted. The
dangerous part here is that once you've been convinced by something, you don't
tag that information as being unreliable because you didn't think critically
about it when you first saw it. I'll sometimes catch myself, in a friendly
debate, repeating something I've read, and then immediately saying "nevermind;
that doesn't make any sense", because I'd absorbed the information
unconsciously without thinking about it, but the act of saying it reveals that
it's not logically sound.

[1] [http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/01/would-you-
gi...](http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/01/would-you-give-way-at-
photocopier.html)

~~~
shardling
>There's something funny you see in voting patterns if you make a comment, and
then someone replies with refutation, and then the refutation is refuted, and
so on.

I've noticed that sometimes, if someone makes a post _agreeing_ with a comment
but not explicitly saying so, it'll get interpreted as a disagreement simply
because folk have fallen into the back-and-forth rhythm.

~~~
andrewflnr
I hate that. I dont think it requires an existing back-and-forth either. If
you say something _different_ than the person you're replying to, they assume
you mean the opposite of what they believe, presumably because that's easier
than untangling the web of agreements and disagreements, errors and truths and
unknowns, that exist between any two real people...

If you're reading this, for the love of all that is sane, next time you make a
comment, reply to what the other person _actually says_ , not what you think
they _mean_. If you feel the need to respond to something unsaid, make it
explicit.

------
kijin
This has nothing to do with comments. The emphasis on comments is little more
than an attempt to get on the "social media is harmful" bandwagon.

As the principal researcher herself acknowledges:

> Brossard admitted she was "bothered" by the study results but not
> particularly surprised. "In a discussion, when you see people frowning, it
> influences how you feel about the discussion," she said. "So how does that
> translate to the online community?"

Imagine that you were introduced to a product while visiting a web page that
was full of blinking text and full-page Flash ads. Compare that to a product
you were introduced to while visiting a clean and well-formatted web page.
Which product do you think will leave you with a favorable impression of it?
It's a matter of basic human psychology. We respond to the whole experience,
not just the propositional content of an article.

Rude comments ruin your first impression of a technology. Huh, nothing
surprising about it. You could probably achieve the same result by replacing
those manufactured comments with super annoying ads, horrible web design, or
any of the million other ways in which you can spoil a person's browsing
experience. But as it happens, complaining about the harmful effect of pop-up
ads on news sites is much less sexy than complaining about the purportedly ill
effects of participatory online discussion.

~~~
Cogito
> This has nothing to do with comments. The emphasis on comments is little
> more than an attempt to get on the "social media is harmful" bandwagon.

I don't agree.

First of all, this study was about comments, and as such we now have data
about how comments affect the reader. There may be studies about annoying ads
and the like, but _this_ study is useful because it provides data about
_comments_ on a page. I agree with your premise that

> We respond to the whole experience, not just the propositional content of an
> article.

however this article and study are most certainly about the specific effect of
comments.

Secondly, comments are significantly different enough from the other elements
you outlined (such as design and advertisements) to warrant individual
research and reporting. For example, comments are _community-generated_ vs
"site-generated" (for want of a better term) things like design and ad
content. Comments are a user engagement tool, and in light of this research
this tool evokes a number of questions.

* Good design is for our intents a solved problem; find a good designer and give them money. How does one cultivate "good" comments?

* We agree that having malware advertisements on your site is bad practice; is it bad practice to have unmoderated comments on a science blog?

* Are authors justified in disabling comments completely?

I don't agree that this is just "complaining about the purportedly ill effects
of participatory online discussion", nor do I even agree that this is what was
being done in the first place (it's not how I read the article). This article
is providing reporting about a study that has given us data about how comments
effect consumers of science reporting, and should cause us to question the
role and implementation of comments in the future.

As an aside, my favourite comment from the article, posted after a long series
of rants about reporters with agendas:

> Ouch, right in the irony.

------
kafkaesque
I agree that it depends on the community. It's not science related, but I
recently moved to Los Angeles and started using Yelp. The LA Yelp Talk forums
are filled with the most horrific comments and interactions I've ever seen. I
was so taken aback that I went to my hometown's Yelp Talk to see if all of it
was like that, and the difference was night and day. In fact, my hometown's
Yelp Talk forum talked about what frightening and unbelievably rude people
participated in Yelp Talk LA. This particular community has no sense of
netiquette and it is basically a free-for-all. In my experience, it is
interesting how this is very indicative of the popular/mainstream culture in
Los Angeles, as well.

------
absconditus
The comments on the article itself are especially interesting when considered
in the context of the article.

~~~
Cogito
I initially thought they were sarcastic, but I quickly decided that was
unlikely. Amusing from the outside looking in I guess.

------
nnq
Any serious news source should have something like a professional "comment
moderator" and division of "top comments" selected by the editor and the
general discussion only below. "Crowd wisdom" only works for groups of
knowledgeable people that are also skilled in online communication - take HN
or SO. _It doesn't work with things like science popularization articles
because 99% of readers lack not only scientific/technical education (and this
is ok, because the articles are written for them to understand) but also basic
reasoning skills and common sense factual communication skills_ (eg. most
people are taught to _make themselves heard and promote their opinion_ and not
to STFU when they have no idea of the topic). And then you automatically have
the ones distorting the facts to promote their interests - and these people
are actively drawn to "science for the public" kind of places!

------
ghayes
This is what I enjoy about reading HackerNews. The comments are insightful and
usually contribute to the discussion, often in a meritorious fashion that
spawns interesting conversation. A strong community which makes informed
comments clearly can be effective at helping scientific understanding. Good
job on everyone here for that.

------
joe_the_user
Gak!

Reaching the conclusion that the article-writer wants you to reach should not
count as "Science understanding". What should count is a knowledge of math,
science foundations and statistics sufficient to critically evaluate articles
and comments.

Uh, and an article about "nanotechnology"? This is science that barely exists.
What is a "balanced" article on this??

------
twelvechairs
> realizing how potent online comments can be in undermining a factual report
> may help publications to better manage comments on their websites

I think this is the wrong thing to take away from this. If you are indeed
writing a 'factual report', nothing should be disputable. The problem comes
with dumbed-down or poorly written news reports where the 'facts' aren't
presented, or are heavily mixed with opinion...

The solution is less to 'manage comments' as the article says and more to
write better articles, and encourage a good culture of news where readers and
commenters are critical and contribute to the conversation (like HN does -
sometimes).

~~~
dinkumthinkum
> If you are indeed writing a 'factual report', nothing should be disputable.

The world is just not that simple.

>The solution is less to 'manage comments' as the article says and more to
write better articles, and encourage a good culture of news where readers and
commenters are critical and contribute to the conversation

I think it would be very rare to find articles so well written as to prevent
jibber jabber from occurring in comments. HN is a very different kind of
community from these others as well. Also, HN isn't immune to this. :) On HN,
I have found the problem to be more with groupthink opinions rather than
outright misinformation ... well that occurs too, especially on articles
relating to higher education.

------
lostcoder85
I think that's why these guys are trying something different -
[http://blog.functionspace.org/news/2013/1/3/making-more-
sens...](http://blog.functionspace.org/news/2013/1/3/making-more-sense-of-
online-discussions)

------
guscost
What a strange and strategic conclusion. Obviously it depends on the
community.

------
runn1ng
When I went into the comment section of the article, all I can see is
namecalling of liberals, conservatives, scientists and newspaper writers.

I am not really sure if the comments are meant as irony or not.

My brain is melting.

~~~
illuminate
If there's "science" in the title, I can guarantee that there are going to be
sincere pseudoscientists drawn in to state "WHAT DOES SCIENCE KNOW ANYWAY" no
matter what the topic is.

------
IheartApplesDix
Isn't science reporting misleading in general? Fact is hiding the actual
science behind journal pay walls makes it even worse. Of course if you gather
a bunch of people in the room and make an announcement, individuals will be
affected by the reaction of the other people in the room. Thus opinion setting
agendas become funded.

------
Tichy
Total garbage, never heard anything more stupid in my life.

</experiment>

~~~
alan_cx
It would have been a lot more interesting had you not added "/experiment>" as
a loin cloth. Which makes it impossible for a thinker to play. Am I voting you
up or down on the "cleverness", your actual "experiment", or what I perceive
as humour? What if every one reading is so clever they simply don't vote
either way?

For this, a "blown mind" button is required!!

~~~
Tichy
What can I say, I guess I am a karma whore after all. Couldn't face the risk
of accumulating a lot of downvotes.

