I found a lurking variable! A+ for me
Cute, little clips with all sorts of facts zinging across the screen are hard to hate. You somehow stumble upon them while “doing homework,” probably because of YouTube or Tumblr or Facebook or StumbleUpon (and wow, I have more ways to procrastinate than classes I need to study for). And they’re impressive. They catch you off guard, with their fancy type and flashy colors. If you’re anything like me, colorful moving type on a bright screen all too easily and distressingly attracts your attention. Suddenly, I understand why I find shiny, silver objects so distracting. (Macbook pro. It’s so pretty.)
But then I stumbled upon this. At first, it was cool. I’m thinking, I love social media! Gen Y? That’s me! And okay, an attempt (well, fail) at typography, I’ll keep watching. But then, at some point, two thoughts entered:
1.) Uh, how long is this thing?
2.) Wait a minute. Did they just– oh, they just did.
As if they didn’t have enough facts to point out the obvious (that social media is quite convincingly the trend), they had to make the unforgivable mistake of pulling facts and implying–oh no–causation. At one point, they cite a 2009 study indicating that, on average, online students outperform students with face-to-face instruction. Because it’s totally cool to ignore lurking variables, such as, oh, I don’t know, the possibility that students who choose to take online classes generally don’t need as much face-to-face instruction (hence electing to take an online course) as other students. In all fairness, though, it’s an awesome purposeful exclusion to support the clip’s main assertion–that social media is more the future, less the fad.
But that got me thinking. All those cute clips with facts zinging across the screen–that’s the problem with them. They lack context. It’s like saying: FACT–More people fly kites than the entire population of Denmark. Fad? No, FUTURE. And that is a very terrible, terrible thing indeed.
Not all clips are like that though. Some, like The Girl Effect, are legit and have well-designed websites to follow. I can deal with that.
But this social media one? On a topic I so dearly love? Sorry, it’s a no go. And p.s. your choice of typeface sucks.