Social Media or not Social Media?

The Hamlet doubt of scientific research

Can social media, like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, have any sort of relevance in the scientific work?

On the one hand, the question appears almost trivial. A recent analysis showed that these tools already reach almost 40% of the world’s population, and that these figures are going to further increase. On the other hand, however, there is a gap between scientists and social media, and these communication channels are look at with a widespread ill-concealed suspect and uneasiness among the scientific community.

In a way, this cannot be surprising.

Scientists are used to different and less immediate type of communications, like peer-reviewed papers, conference proceedings, and the like. Moreover, social media are considered to lack the necessary credibility to convey scientific information. However, this picture can be misleading. Indeed, social media are just tools that, used in the right way by the right persons, can surely bring advantages to the scientific community.

For example, some science-related Facebook pages already have a large base of followers that counts in the millions. Such an audience is obviously composed by non-scientists, and posts related to research funding achieved the highest engagement. This…