Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bad Reporting, Not Email, Worse Than Marijuana

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the it-happens-but-needs-correcting dept.

MoNickels writes "Turns out, those endless news reports and blog entries in April about "texting makes you stupid" were inaccurate. As linguist Mark Liberman at LanguageLog now reports by way of apologizing to Wilson, it wasn't Wilson's fault, but that of "rotten science journalism." Psychologist Glenn Wilson was reported to have done a study said that chat and email, as the Guardian put it, "are a greater threat to IQ and concentration than taking cannabis." But Wilson says, "This...is a temporary distraction effect—not a permanent loss of IQ. The equivalences with smoking pot and losing sleep were made by others, against my counsel, and 8 [subjects] somehow became '80 clinical trials.'" The original Slashdot story was covered back in April."

2 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. In other news by NoGuffCheck · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Slashdot to rebrand:

    Slashdot. Rotten Science Journalism for Nerds. Dupes? Yeah we got 'em.

    --
    serenity now!
  2. What's this about cannabis now? by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Sorry I completely lost track of what you were saying hahahaha

    No seriously what?

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"