To get people to pay attention to science, you have to make it engaging. But what makes content engaging often comes at the cost of detail – shaping what people learn and what they think they've learned. The result: People can come away with the wrong idea, even when what they read isn't factually wrong.
That tension sits at the core of research from Marta Serra-Garcia , a behavioral economist at the University of California San Diego's Rady School of Management . The study, published in the American Economic Review , examines how incentives in the online attention economy shape the way scientific information is communicated – and what readers ultimately take away from it.
A trade-off in the attention economy
You don't need bad actors for people to get the wrong idea. Incomplete information can be enough.
Crucially, the research finds that attention-grabbing summaries are not more likely to be factually inaccurate. Instead, they tend to include less information – especially key details about how studies were conducted.
"This is not a simple story that clickbait is bad," said Serra-Garcia, associate professor of economics and strategy and Phyllis and Daniel Epstein Chancellor's Endowed Faculty Fellow at UC San Diego's Rady School. "You need to get people's attention in order for them to learn something, and it's good to encourage curiosity. Yet there's a trade-off: Material designed to engage can also unintentionally contribute to the kinds of misunderstandings that can fuel misinformation."
The finding comes from a large, multi-stage experimental study in which freelance writers produced nearly 600 summaries of actual scientific research, and more than 3,700 participants were then tested on what they learned from them.
Why "in mice" matters
In one study used in the experiment, a compound in broccoli reduced cancer cell growth – in mice. Leave out those last two words, and the finding can sound far more directly relevant to human health than it actually is.
"Why can't we say 'in mice'?" Serra-Garcia said. "It's not very hard to add. It's two words. But once you say 'in mice,' maybe fewer people will click."
Study results were consistent. Summaries written to attract attention were shorter, easier to read and more engaging – but included less detailed information, especially about sample sizes and methods.
