It has long been known that social media have a lot of influence on our thinking. When thousands of scientific studies in the US suddenly got a strange impact, it still took a while to get to the bottom: a single video at Tiktok.
The willingness to try a new product in the supermarket, to give a new series on Netflix a chance or even to change the mood in elections or in relation to the corona pandemic: Nobody would deny that the ubiquitous social media in one form or another Have an influence on moods and one’s own taste. A case in the USA shows just how drastically individual people or posts can develop their power.
It actually started quite harmlessly. Sarah Frank, a normal teenager from the United States, wanted to give Tiktok her peers some tips on how to make a few dollars quickly on the side. One of the suggestions: With the Prolific survey platform, scientists and companies pay for taking the time to fill out questionnaires on various topics. But what Frank started with, she hadn’t foreseen, she reports “The Verge”.
Where do all the women come from?
Even the scientists initially had no idea what had just happened. But the consequences were immediately noticeable. “I am currently analyzing my study with 300 participants. Very generic title and description. It’s all about social comparison and money. 91 percent are female, 7 percent male” the psychology graduate student wondered. “I don’t think I hired anything wrong. How does that happen?”
Irritation quickly arose in the forum of the survey service too. There was a doubling of the participants from 40,000 to 80,000, said a laboratory employee at the US elite Stanford University. “That, of course, is great in itself. But in many studies, 85 percent are women all of a sudden. And the average age is 21 years.”
Viral post versus science
Only slowly it dawned on them what could be behind it: Frank’s Tiktok video had more than four million views within just one month. “That may sound absurd”, tweeted the psychologist Hannah Schechter. “But given the timing, the virality of the video, and the demographics of the poster’s followers …” Even Prolific is now certain that the clip caused the shift. “Before Tiktok, we had about 50 percent of the responses from women”said the company’s chief technology officer, Phelim Bradley, by email “The Verge”. “The strong influx pushed it up to 75 percent for a few days.” The more time passes, the more it adjusts itself to earlier values. “We are currently back with around 60 percent female answers.”
The fact that the high quota of women is a problem at all is due to the structure of scientific surveys and the Prolific system. In order to achieve a certain informative value, studies not only have to have a minimum number of participants, they should generally also represent the broadest possible cross-section of the population. Before the emergence of Internet platforms such as Prolific and competing offers, this was not always easy: the respondents had to be approached, selected and looked after. The service offers made studies easier to design – as long as the platform’s user base was mixed enough.
It was until the onslaught of Tiktok fans – and this is where the failure of the platform itself came into play: Because it wasn’t necessary beforehand, Prolific did not include an option to filter out the respondents according to certain criteria. The result: around 4600 current studies were falsified by the viral video. That is about a third of the ongoing studies, according to Bradley. Most of them can be repaired by filtering out the answers from the period, explains the company. In addition, the researchers concerned have been compensated. Now the platform is to be rebuilt in order to prevent a similar scenario in the future. “We were simply surprised at how powerful the effect could be”, so Bradley.
Unexpected boom
Student Sarah Frank herself never expected that the clip would have such an effect. She earned just under $ 80 on the platform. “It never occurred to me that the clip would explode like that. I just wanted to include a tip for my friends and followers”she explained. “I suspect it got so successful because the site is really cool and people love making easy money.”
But that is exactly what they have currently spoiled, complain the older users of the site. Because so many newcomers have arrived, there are hardly any profitable surveys, they complain. “It has become one of the many sites where a lot of work can earn you pennies again”, scolds a user on Reddit. Frank also felt the effect himself. “Fewer studies are offered to me and to everyone else”she confesses. But that should improve soon, she is sure. “A lot of people who signed up for my video will soon forget about the page. And then the boom subsides again.”
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