An Avalanche of Worthless Non-Studies

Mike Males, a senior researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice has a nice substack I just discovered.  He is devoted to exposing crap studies pointing to false problems at the expense of real problems we could do something about. Needless to say, I have great sympathy. He especially delights in  showing that social media is not actually bad for teenagers, that researchers dislike the young, especially boys, and that adolescent violence is not on the rise. Here is a representative post: An Avalanche of Worthless Non-Studies on Teens and Social Media 

…this barn-burner MSN headline: “Brain structure changes may partially explain the link between screen time and ADHD”. Screens are wrecking your kids’ brain!

In fact, the study of 10,000 children featured in this scary headline found literally ZERO linkage between increased screen time and “increased ADHD symptoms… and reduced cortical thickness in specific regions (right temporal pole… left superior frontal gyrus… and left rostral middle frontal gyrus)…”

The MAXIMUM β value this study found for any effect was 0.032. NOTHING! Yet, again, that study failed to control for parental abuses/troubles, so: less than nothing.

He uses research and mathematical terms which may throw you at first glance, but it is possible to understand what is going on without knowing them deeply.