Media outlets are pounding away at a recent study linking Facebook use to low grades. Let's have a look.

Time: "Forget the widely unloved redesign. Facebook has committed a greater offense."

CBS 4, Miami: "Study Finds Facebook Usage May Yield Lower Grades"

CBS' Today Show:


Maybe students who use Facebook take harder courses. Maybe Facebook users take more intramural activities than non-users. All alternative explanations completely ignored by the mainstream- but not by the study's original author, who says her own work is "exploratory and inconclusive and should be further researched".

The articles here- and others like them- sometimes point out those comments, or trot out an "expert" to put up a token defense, but any sense of impartiality is undermined by the headlines and lead paragraphs. The message that gets across: "Facebook is bad for you."

I point out this senseless media fluff only to highlight a point I think needs to be made.

I've spent my entire life to this point studying and consuming mainstream media- television, radio, magazines and newspapers. The common thread is that direct, simple explanations sell better than anything else. Make obvious connections. Wrap up complex details into easily-digestible statements. Provide simple explanations for the way the world works and ask your audience to make sweeping generalizations. Whatever the media distorts- and it's a lot- isn't done in the name of promoting a political, social, or corporate agenda. It's all for the sake of entertainment, of creating a world where things somehow make sense, to keep you tuned in and thinking the people who produce your news have any idea what they're actually talking about. Facebook makes you dumber. Lawyers are irredeemable scumbags. Fat people should just put down the Big Mac and get to the gym.

I'm not telling the majority of the Destructoid community anything new. Most people who find their way to this community already see through these kinds of stories better than I do, and Destructoid posts plenty of articles about the media dumbness that ensues every time some study or another remotely links video games to violence or antisocial behavior or OMG TEH TRENCHCOAT MAFIA. But there's someone on this webpage right now who really does need to hear this.

Never believe a news story based on a lone study. Studies are, by nature and purpose, singular data points, not conclusive pieces of evidence, and are only relevant in the long, patient process of peer review. Simplicity and timeliness are the lifeblood of modern media. The people we trust to bring us the world do so entirely in Cliff's Notes.

(This lesson is a good one to keep in mind when all the "Columbine: 10 years later" stories hit the airwaves. Stay tuned.)