Are Twitter and Blogs Important Tools for the Modern Psychological Scientist?

Perspect Psychol Sci. 2017 Nov;12(6):1171-1175. doi: 10.1177/1745691617712266.

Abstract

Psychological scientists have many roles, one of which is, arguably, to communicate their research findings to a broader audience. Twitter and blogging offer relatively inexpensive options for this type of outreach. Engagement in these outreach efforts can lead to career enhancement, but also comes at a cost. We examined a sample of 327 psychological scientists to determine the prevalence of this type of outreach; while the use of Twitter appears to be on the rise, blogging remains very rare. In this piece, we explore the costs and benefits for psychological scientists of blogging and engaging with the general public on Twitter, and how tweeting and blogging might relate to academic merit and varieties of fame in psychology.

Keywords: application; communication; education; language.

MeSH terms

  • Blogging*
  • Humans
  • Information Dissemination / methods*
  • Psychology / methods*
  • Research Personnel* / psychology
  • Scholarly Communication*
  • Social Media*