Comment on The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood
Deadful@lemmy.world 8 months agoSorry, but that’s not what the actual JAMA research study says:
Greater early-life digital media exposures may be associated with atypical sensory processing. Further research is needed to understand why early media exposure is associated with specific sensory-related behaviors, including those seen in autism spectrum disorder, and if minimizing screen media at a young age can improve subsequent sensory-related outcomes.>
To me, making the jump to say “Screen time directly linked to autism and ADHD” based on the data in this study is like saying “American football playing is associated with specific types of head trauma, including the types seen in car accident victims, but further research is needed to understand why” and then writing an article saying “AMERICAN FOOTBALL PLAYING DIRECTLY LINKED TO CAR ACCIDENTS!!!”
Here is a link to the actual research paper instead of a badly written sensationalistic article if anyone is interested:
Bleach7297@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Interesting. What does the paragraph above the one you posted say?
Deadful@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It says absolutely nothing about autism and ADHD, as you can see:
I copied and shared the portion of the summary that provides interpretation for the findings because it’s the only place where autism is noted, ADHD is totally absent.
Bleach7297@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
I mean, if you think that they aren’t talking about ADHD and autism there, after reading the article, well okay then.
The paper comes as close to saying ‘direct link’ as these papers ever do. It’s quite difficult to prove a direct link and there are consequences for using that language inaccurately, when you’re publishing in a respected journal (at least there is supposed to be)
Pop-sci articles are usually going to try to hook readers with their headlines. Not being beholden to the same standards, they are free to read between the lines, as it were. One could say it’s BS but there’s a lot of substance there to refute.
Its an important article that shouldn’t be ignored, and if people want more details, they can get to the JAMA investigation from the link provided at the end.
Deadful@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think you are forgetting that correlation does not imply causation. I know it gets said often around here, but apparently it’s because people don’t understand what it means.
Is there an atypical sensory response that appears to increase with television exposure in young children according to this study? Yes.
Can an atypical sensory response be a part of the diagnostic criteria for autism? Yes
Does this study, with its limited criteria and scope, make any viable substantive connection between television exposure and autism? No.
Because of the (understandable) limitations of the research criteria, they aren’t even able to prove that less television exposure would improve these outcomes, and they readily admit that. Is it because “THE MAN” won’t let them TELL THE TRUTH about what is REALLY going on, or is it dangerous, misleading, and unscientific to say things that can’t be proven as if it’s fact?
As someone who has worked and continues to work with several doctors in a medical research environment I can assure you that there is a fair amount of bias at play in these types of studies and money is often the driving force. I personally have seen two lead research physicians, one I had performed testing for, get quietly “asked to leave” our institution when it was revealed that they had a private stake in a medical company that they refused to disclose when testing their products.
The point I’m trying to make is that bias in research is bad and publications need to be doing more to defend against it, not less. “Reading between the lines” in research has led to countless people being injured and killed. For example, Andrew Wakefield was struck from the UK medical registry and barred from practicing medicine after England’s GMC found that Wakefield had been dishonest in his research in his ‘98 paper published to the Lancet claiming a connection between vaccinations and autism. They also determined he had acted against his patients’ best interests, mistreated developmentally delayed children, and had “failed in his duties as a responsible consultant” in order to earn as much as $43 million a year selling testing kits. Despite this and no other researchers being able to reproduce his findings this dangerous misconception still lives on when people like Robert Kennedy go on Joe Rogan and help us “read between the lines” by regurgitating this self-serving and harmful bullshit narrative, encouraging parents not to vaccinate their kids.