CNET’s Chris Matyszczyk recently took apart an extremely stupid bit of research on computer gamers – to cut the message short, we all are antisocial and love to smoke pot. I personally have heavy lung problems and thus am physically unable to do so…and none of my mates has ever felt like it either. So far so good.
Unfortunately, this discussion does not bring us anywhere – in fact, it supports the work of these critters. This may sound weird…but think of my now-classic article on egoshooters:
Many of the studies come from attention-seeking, unsuccessful doctors
I never believed this until I experienced it myself…this is a true story!One day, I was at a bar programming. The DJ kept playing Rap(hey, its a LOUNGE) – and I walked up to him to ‘motivate’ him to play something else. Ok- Assemblage 23- and back to coding. Suddenly, I noted a gal slipping next to me talking to me about how Rap makes people aggressive, etc. Hmm – interesting gal, lets talk. She openly confessed that she decided to write her thesis on this topic for only one reason: to get media attention. This media attention should help her repay her student loan – mad but true!
If we continue from this story, there is only one thing we (as the analyst community) can do to stop the crap: the solution is to stop covering these idiotic bits of “research”. Whenever you get a press release about it, send them a link to this article and delete it without giving it any airtime.
It may sound weird at the first glance – but is the only thing that works. If these men of honour find their family robbed of a cheap way to get press and money, they will move onto other fields of business or will ideally get on the dole.
The first cleanses our industry from this cancer and helps us grow faster, but puts the burden on others. The second would eventually lead to less folks graduating…which means that the overall burden gets reduced over time.
Either way: the only way to handle these issues is the delete key…
What do you think?
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