Study finds X’s (formerly Twitter’s) community notes provide accurate, credible answers to vaccine misinformation

A new study published in JAMA finds X’s Community Notes has resulted in hundreds-of-millions of views of accurate and credible COVID-19 vaccine education, suggesting considerable potential for the correction of misinformation

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

 

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A NEW STUDY PUBLISHED IN JAMA LED BY JOHN W. AYERS, PH.D., FROM THE QUALCOMM INSTITUTE WITHIN UC SAN DIEGO, FINDS THAT X'S COMMUNITY NOTES, A CROWDSOURCED APPROACH TO ADDRESSING MISINFORMATION, COUNTERED FALSE HEALTH INFORMATION IN POPULAR POSTS ABOUT COVID-19 VACCINES WITH ACCURATE, CREDIBLE RESPONSES.

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CREDIT: SCREENSHOT BY QUALCOMM INSTITUTE, UC SAN DIEGO

As the proliferation of misinformation continues to pose a significant challenge on social media platforms, a beacon of hope emerges in research from the University of California San Diego.

A new study published in JAMA led by John W. Ayers, Ph.D., from the Qualcomm Institute within UC San Diego, finds that X's Community Notes, a crowdsourced approach to addressing misinformation, helped counter false health information in popular posts about COVID-19 vaccines with accurate, credible responses.

“Since the World Health Organization declared an ‘infodemic’ of misinformation, there have been surprisingly few achievements to celebrate,” said Ayers, who is vice chief of innovation in the Division of Infectious Disease and Global Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Deputy Director of Informatics at the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute in addition to Qualcomm Institute scientist. “X's Community Notes have emerged as an innovative solution, pushing back with accurate and credible health information.” 

Understanding Social Media Misinformation Countermeasures

Before the inception of Community Notes, social media companies employed various tactics to tackle misinformation, including censoring, shadowbanning (muting a user or their content on a platform without informing them), and adding generic warning labels to problematic content. “However, social media companies have been unwilling to disclose details of the inner workings of their efforts against misinformation or to share the necessary data to study their utility,” said Mathew Allen, study co-author and UC San Diego medical student. 

In late 2022, X introduced Community Notes—a paradigm shift in the fight against misinformation. This novel approach empowers volunteer, independent, anonymous, and ideologically diverse contributors to identify posts containing misinformation and to rectify misinformation by appending informative "notes" to suspect posts. The process is controlled by the public, instead of decision-makers at the company.

“Because Community Notes is a uniquely open-sourced misinformation countermeasure, it can be studied and improved using the scientific method,” added Allen. 

Evaluating X’s Community Notes

The research team obtained all notes that mentioned terms related to vaccines or COVID along with their corresponding posts made during the first year of the Community Notes program, from December 12, 2022, through December 12, 2023. Of 45,783 notes, 657 address COVID-19 vaccination, with the monthly rate of notes increasing from 22 to 186 during the study. 

A team of evaluators working with an infectious disease physician and virologist evaluated the subject, accuracy, and source credibility of randomly sampled notes. Of the notes examined, 51% addressed adverse events attributed to COVID-19 vaccination; 37%, conspiracy theories; 7%, vaccine recommendations; and 5% vaccine effectiveness. In terms of accuracy, 97.5% of notes were entirely accurate; 2%, partially accurate, meaning they addressed scientifically debated conclusions; and 0.5%, inaccurate. In terms of sources, 49% of notes cited highly credible sources (such as primary data sources, like peer-reviewed studies); 44%, moderately credible sources (such as major news outlets or fact checkers); and 7%, low credibility sources (such as blogs or tabloids).

“Notes typically addressed obvious misinformation, offering corrections from credible sources,” said Nimit Desai, a study co-author and UC San Diego medical student. "It's remarkable to witness the online community's adeptness in steering conversations towards accurate and high-quality evidence when provided with the right tools."

The sample of notes studied was attached to posts that averaged 1,064,981 views, extrapolating to between 500 million and 1 billion views for all COVID-19 vaccination-related posts noted. 

"Our study shifts the focus from talking about misinformation to taking action, offering practical insights into social media strategies that protect public health," explained Mark Dredze, Ph.D., the John C Malone Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University and study co-author. "Although we couldn’t examine how these notes directly influenced people's beliefs or actions, the characteristics we analyzed have consistently been shown to predict a message's effectiveness."

Learning from and Enhancing X’s Community Notes

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf recently argued vaccination is approaching a dangerous tipping point because of social media misinformation. "One viable avenue for the public health community to combat this threat is to actively engage in social media-based interventions, such as Community Notes," said physician-scientist and study co-author Davey Smith, M.D., chief of the Division of Infectious Disease and Global Public Health and professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine, co-director of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute at UC San Diego, and immunologist at UC San Diego Health. "While only a fraction of vaccine misinformation posts are currently addressed, the ample room for expansion suggests significant opportunities to amplify the impact of Community Notes."

Eric Leas, Ph.D., co-author of the study, assistant professor at the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and Qualcomm Institute affiliate, highlighted the transformative role of Community Notes in combating misinformation. “Rather than censoring misleading content, Community Notes fosters a learning environment where users can glean insights from corrections to misinformation to prevent similar misunderstandings in the future. By providing context and credible sources alongside contentious posts, the platform empowers users to discern fact from fiction, a skill they will find useful as they navigate all claims.”

Ayers concluded, "Other social media platforms should embrace transparency by open-sourcing their misinformation countermeasures. This step is crucial for enabling independent scientific scrutiny, which will enhance public trust in and amplify adoption of the most impactful strategies."

In addition to Ayers, Allen, Desai, Leas, Dredze, and Smith, authors of the JAMA paper, “Characteristics of X’s (Twitter) Community Notes Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation” (JAMA doi:10.1001/jama.2024.4800), include Aiden Namazi, a student research intern at UC San Diego’s Qualcomm Institute.

A new study published finds that X's Community Notes, a crowdsourced approach to addressing misinformation, helped counter false health information in popular posts about COVID-19 vaccines with accurate, credible responses.

CREDIT

Screenshot courtesy of John Ayers, Qualcomm Institute, UC San Diego

JOURNAL

JAMA

DOI

10.1001/jama.2024.4800 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Characteristics of X’s (Twitter) Community Notes Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Apr-2024

COI STATEMENT

Mr. Desai reported receiving personal fees from Pearl Health outside submitted work. Dr. Dredze reported receiving personal fees from Bloomberg LP and from Good Analytics outside the submitted work. Dr. Smith reported receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health and Translational Science Awards during the conduct of the study and consulting fees from Bayer, Gilead, Model Medicines, FluxErgy, Linear Therapies and Vx Biosciences. Dr. Ayers reported owning equity positions in Health Watcher and Good Analytics outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

 

Child pedestrians, self-driving vehicles: What’s the safest scenario for crossing the road?

Researchers say clear, later-timed signals on cars provide safest outcomes

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

 

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CROSSING ROADS FOR CHILDREN CAN BE A RISKY CALCULATION, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE VEHICLES ARE SELF-DRIVEN. IN A NEW STUDY, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA RESEARCHERS DETERMINED PRE-TEENAGE CHILDREN ARE SAFEST WHEN SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES SIGNALED THEIR INTENT TO YIELD WITH A GREEN LIGHT WHEN THEY ARRIVED AT THE INTERSECTION, THEN STOPPED.

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CREDIT: TIM SCHOON, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

Crossing a busy street safely typically is a result of a social exchange. Pedestrians look for cues—a wave, a head nod, a winking flash of the headlights, and, of course, a full vehicle stop—to know it’s safe to cross.

But those clues could be absent or different with self-driving vehicles. How will children and adults know when it’s safe to cross the road?

In a new study, University of Iowa researchers investigated how pre-teenage children determined when it was safe to cross a residential street with oncoming self-driving cars. The researchers found children made the safest choices when self-driving cars indicated via a green light on top of the vehicle that it was safe to cross when the vehicle arrived at the intersection, then stopped. When self-driving cars turned on the green light farther away from the crossing point—and even when they slowed down—children engaged in riskier intersection crossings, the researchers learned.

“Children exhibited much safer behavior when the light turned green later,” says Jodie Plumert, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the study’s senior author. “They seemed to treat it like a walk light and waited for that light to come on before starting to cross. Our recommendation, then, for autonomous vehicle design is that their signals should turn on when the car comes to a stop, but not before.”

The difference in the timing of the green light signal from the self-driving car is important: Children are inclined to use the light as the vehicle’s clearance to go ahead and cross, trusting that it will stop as it gets closer to the intersection. But as Plumert and co-author Elizabeth O’Neal point out, that could invite peril. 

“This could be dangerous if the car for some reason does not stop, though pedestrians will have the benefit of getting across the road sooner,” says Plumert, who is the Russell B. and Florence D. Day Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences. 

“So, even though it may be tempting to make the traffic flow more efficient by having these signals come on early, it’s probably pretty dangerous for kids in particular,” adds O’Neal, assistant professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health and the study’s corresponding author.

Some may see self-driving vehicles as a futuristic technology, but they are operating right now in American cities. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety projects there will be 3.5 million vehicles with self-driving functionality on U.S. roads by next year, and 4.5 million by 2030. This year, an autonomous-vehicle taxi service, called Waymo One, will operate in four cities, including new routes in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. 

This comes as pedestrian deaths from motor vehicles remains a serious concern. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, more than 7,500 pedestrians were killed by drivers in 2022, a 40-year high. 

“The fact is drivers don’t always come to a complete stop, even with stop signs,” notes Plumert, who has studied vehicle-pedestrian interactions since 2012. “People are running stop signs all the time. Sometimes drivers don’t see people. Sometimes they’re just spacing out.”

The researchers aimed to understand how children respond to two different cues from self-driving cars when deciding when to cross a road: gradual versus a sudden (later) slowing; and the distance from the crossing point when a green light signal atop the vehicle was activated. The researchers placed nearly 100 children ages 8 to 12 in a realistic simulated environment and asked them to cross one lane of a road with oncoming driverless vehicles. The crossings took place in an immersive, 3D interactive space at the Hank Virtual Environments Lab on the UI campus.

Researchers observed and recorded the children’s crossing actions and spoke with them after the sessions to learn more about how they responded to the green light signaling and the timing of the vehicle slowing.

One major difference in crossing behavior: When the car’s green light turned on farther away from the crossing point, child participants entered the intersection on average 1.5 seconds sooner than the kids whose scenario included the light coming on later and the vehicle had stopped at the crossing point.

“That time difference is actually quite significant,” Plumert notes. “A green light signal that flashes early is potentially dangerous because kids and even adults will use it as a cue to begin crossing, trusting that the car is going to come to a stop.”

The results build on findings published in 2017 by Plumert and O’Neal that children up to their early teenage years had difficulty consistently crossing a street safely in a virtual environment, with accident rates as high as 8% with 6-year-olds.

That danger underscores the need for clear, easy-to-understand signaling to children from self-driving vehicles, the researchers say. Researchers are testing various communicative signals, including flashing lights, projecting eyes on the windshield, splashing racer stripes on the edge of the windshield, and written words (like walk/don’t walk).

“All have some utility, but children are a special case,” says O’Neal, who earned a doctorate in psychology at Iowa in 2018 and had been working as a postdoctoral researcher in Plumert’s lab before joining the faculty in the College of Public Health. “They may not always be able to incorporate a flashing light or a racing light to indicate that it’s slowing or that it’s going to yield to you.”

Children naturally understood signaling using a green light and a red light, the researchers found. But timing is critical, they learned.

“We think vehicle manufacturers should not consider the idea of turning the light on early or having the signal present early,” Plumert says, “because people will definitely use that, and they’ll get out there in front of the approaching vehicle. People hate to wait.”

The study is titled, "Deciding when to cross in front of an autonomous vehicle: How child and adult pedestrians respond to eHMI timing and vehicle kinematics." It published online on April 24 in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention.

Lakshmi Subramanian, who earned a doctorate from Iowa and now is at Kean University in New Jersey, shares first authorship on the study. Joseph Kearney, professor emeritus in the Department of Computer Science, is a senior author. Contributing authors include Nam-Yoon Kim and Megan Noonan in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

The U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Transportation funded the research.

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JOURNAL

Accident Analysis & Prevention

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Deciding when to cross in front of an autonomous vehicle: How child and adult pedestrians respond to eHMI timing and vehicle kinematics

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Apr-2024

 

Reversals in the decline of heart failure mortality in the US

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: 

This analysis shows that declines in heart failure-related mortality from 1999 to 2012 have been entirely undone by reversals from 2012 to 2021, meaning that contemporary heart failure mortality rates are higher than in 1999. The origins of these reversals preceded the COVID-19 pandemic, although the larger increases in 2020 to 2021 indicate that the pandemic may have accelerated them due to limitations to health care access and possible cardiac involvement. 

Authors: Marat Fudim, M.D., M.H.S., of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ 

(doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2024.0615)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/10.1001/jamacardio.2024.0615?guestAccessKey=5cc02b14-80a8-42e8-b507-d7a5688db4ac&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=042424

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Cardiology

Recreational marijuana laws and teen marijuana use, 1993-2021

JAMA Psychiatry

About The Study: 

In this repeated cross-sectional study, there was no

evidence that recreational marijuana laws were associated

with encouraging youth marijuana use, based on both the

logistic regression and interaction-weighted models. 

Authors: D. Mark Anderson, Ph.D., of Montana State University in Bozeman, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.0698)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.0698?guestAccessKey=c63d4044-3b42-4b46-89fb-831b5fbea310&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=042424

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JOURNAL

JAMA Psychiatry

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

Children with skin diseases suffer stigma, bullying and depression

First large study to look at mental health problems in children with chronic skin conditions

KIDZ R KRUEL

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

 

·  73% of children with skin disease experience stigma and poor quality of life

·  ‘Chronic skin conditions can be tremendously life-altering’

·  Shame during childhood can affect them throughout their lives, dermatologist says

CHICAGO --- The majority of children and teens with chronic skin diseases such as acne, eczema, psoriasis, alopecia areata (hair loss) and vitiligo (pigment loss) feel stigmatized by peers for their condition and are sometimes bullied, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. As a result, these children have a poor quality of life that includes suffering from depression, anxiety and impaired relationships with their peers.  

“These chronic skin conditions can be tremendously life-altering, including shaping psychosocial development,” said corresponding author Dr. Amy Paller, chair of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a pediatric dermatologist at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

Having a chronic skin disease during childhood is not uncommon. Eczema affects more than 10% of school-aged children. Among teenagers, acne affects more than 90% and psoriasis 1%.

This is the first large, multi-site study of the psychosocial impact of skin diseases in children and teens.

The study showed that 73% of 1,671 children had experienced a measurable stigma, which was strongly associated with poor quality of life.

The disease severity and visibility as rated by the child (age eight and older) was quite different from that of the doctor’s ratings, suggesting the need to ask the child about the disease and its impacts.

The study will be published April 24 in JAMA Dermatology.

The investigators used a newly developed scoring tool for stigma in school-aged children (PROMIS Pediatric Stigma) and collaborated with 31 sites in the Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance to measure the extent of stigma, depression, anxiety, and poor peer relationships — and their association with an impaired quality of life.

“Stigma, which is when something false and negative is attached to an individual, can have a profound effect on children’s and teens’ mental health,” Paller said. “For example, a child with dark scales on the body can be called ‘dirty’ by other kids or a child with a hair loss issue can be shunned by other children who fear the hair loss is contagious.”

That can lead the child to internalize these thoughts, so these become their own perceptions. The false beliefs can convince other people around them that it’s true when it’s not. These kids often feel embarrassed or ashamed.”

The majority of the bullying and teasing occurs in school, Paller said.

“These painful experiences can shape a child’s personality into adulthood and erode self-confidence,” Paller said. “Children may underestimate their abilities and worry about taking social risks. They don’t feel good enough and this shame may affect them lifelong.”

Kids also may not be able to concentrate because they are worried in school, affecting their performance, Paller said.

“The study results should encourage clinicians to aggressively treat skin disorders in children and consider referral to evaluation and counseling of the child and potentially family if mental health issues occur,” Paller said.

Doctors need to ask children and parents about the impact of these diseases — stigma, mental health, how it impacts life — not just note the observable clinical manifestations.

It’s important to refer families to dermatologists for optimal treatment to decrease severity and visibility, which contribute to psychosocial impacts.”

Paller also suggested parents ask teachers to discuss the skin disease in the classroom, so other children understand it better. “Try to dimmish the stigma through education and talk about and recognize bullying,” Paller said.

The title of the article is “Stigmatization and Mental Health Impact of Chronic Pediatric Skin Disorders.”

Other Northwestern authors include Stephanie Rangel, Sarah Chamlin, David Cella and Jin-Shei Lai.

The study was funded by the Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance, the umbrella research organization for the field of Pediatric Dermatology

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JOURNAL

JAMA Dermatology

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

“Stigmatization and Mental Health Impact of Chronic Pediatric Skin Disorders.”

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Apr-2024

DEI/CRT

Yale School of Medicine collaboration to further clinical trial diversity

YALE UNIVERSITY

New Haven, Conn. — Yale School of Medicine and Equitable Breakthroughs in Medicine Development (EQBMED) — a multi-institute collaboration focused on clinical trial diversity — announced today a new partnership with 14 community and faith-based organizations and professional societies, furthering its mission to foster equitable access to clinical trials.

“Yale School of Medicine has been working to increase diversity within clinical trials through groundbreaking community partnerships and initiatives for more than a decade, which has been the foundation of much of our EQBMED work,” said Dr. Nancy J. Brown, the Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Yale School of Medicine. “We are honored this tremendous group of professional societies and community and faith-based organizations have agreed to partner with us in establishing a new infrastructure that will positively impact clinical trial diversity.”

EQBMED — led by Yale School of Medicine, along with Morehouse School of Medicine, the Research Centers in Minority Institutions Coordinating Center at Morehouse School of Medicine, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center — has developed a collaborative approach, working with trusted voices within the community to address critical barriers facing communities of color and rural residents. The program works to increase awareness of clinical trials and address misinformation and historical mistrust while ensuring trials are easily accessible. 

Community and faith-based organizations will partner with EQBMED to co-develop strategies to engage and incorporate community perspectives in clinical trials more effectively. The groups will hold listening sessions and develop tested tools, models, and messages to support community engagement and participation. 

Professional societies will design tools and continuing education, including training sessions, webinars, and workshops, to train and retain health care providers and researchers. They will also partner with EQBMED to support development models that ensure clinical research can be a sustainable element of community and rural clinical practices. 

“These collaborations are essential in furthering EQBMED's goal of advancing equity and access to innovative clinical trials,” said Tesheia Harris (Johnson), chief strategy officer at Yale Center for Clinical Investigation at Yale School of Medicine. “Through our combined commitment to fostering diversity in clinical trials, we can continue to forge a path toward a more inclusive landscape for medical research.”

Community organization partners include the Community Action Agency of New Haven, the Community Education Group, the Emerson Clinical Research Institute, The Balm in Gilead, the Urban League of Southern Connecticut, and Urban Marketing Network and the Creative Gods Agency. Faith-based group partners include Choose Healthy Life and the Conference of National Black Churches.

Professional society partners include the Association of Black Cardiologists, the W. Montague Cobb Institute, the National Black Nurses Association, the National Hispanic Health Foundation, the National Hispanic Medical Association, and the National Medical Association.

"This collection of organizations is unique, with various focus areas brought together under one concentrated effort,” said Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate dean for health equity research and the C.N.H Long Professor of Internal Medicine, Public Health, and Management at Yale University. “With the collective knowledge, valued trust, and deep community ties of our partners, we are creating an accessible landscape for medical research and ultimately driving more equitable breakthroughs in health care."

EQBMED is funded and supported by a grant from Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

“This is the next positive step in building and supporting a strong network of community-based clinical trial sites that can lead to institutional change and better health equity,” said Stephen J. Ubl, president and chief executive officer of PhRMA. 

 

The SAPIENS Podcast named finalist at the 16th Annual Shorty Awards

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human has been named as a 16th Annual Shorty Awards finalist in the Science and Technology Podcast Category. 

The Shorty Awards honor the best work in digital and social media by the most creative and influential brands, agencies, organizations, and individuals whose work has excelled in creativity, strategy, and effectiveness.

SAPIENS’s work has demonstrated outstanding performance across the judging criteria, which makes it a top contender for a Shorty Award in a most competitive year. The work is also eligible for competing in the Audience Honor—a separate honor voted by the public between April 16th to April 30th.

“It’s amazing to be among the finalists,” Chip Colwell, SAPIENS’ editor-in-chief said. “There are so many people who contributed to the podcast over the years. It’s wonderful to see them being honored.”

The 16th Annual Shorty Awards winners will be announced at the in-person celebration on May 22, 2024, at Tribeca 360º in New York City.

The winners and honorees are chosen by the Real Time Academy (RTA)—a panel of prominent experts and leaders in digital and social media who have been hand-selected based on their deep industry knowledge, professional reputation, and outstanding achievements, including previous Shorty wins. 

Members of the Academy include Michelle Wong (CMO, Sprinkles), Allison Hobbs (Senior Director, Creative Services, Mediabrands Content Studio), Emeka Obia (Integrated Strategy Director, Publicis West Africa), Hital Pandya (Global Group Creative Director, Leo Burnett Chicago), Brittany Rice (Director, Social and Content, FX Networks/Disney), João Inácio (Creative Director, DEPT Agency), Naz Nazli (Creative Director, Creative X, Meta), Laura Mignott (Global Chief Experiential Officer, VML Commerce), among others.

ABOUT SAPIENS: A PODCAST FOR EVERYTHING HUMAN

In January 2016, SAPIENS magazine was launched with a mission to bring anthropology—the study of being human—to the public to make a difference in how people see themselves and everyone around them. The magazine deepens the public’s understanding of the human experience by exploring anthropology’s most exciting, novel, and thought-provoking ideas. Complementing the magazine, SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human presents stories about the human experience through the lens of anthropology. Each season takes a different approach, ranging from in-depth storytelling to interviews, to tackle such topics as DNA and identity, preppers and the apocalypse, dreaming, Denisovans, police violence and the pandemic, and sunken slave ships.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and published in partnership with the University of Chicago Press. Subscribe to SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human wherever listeners get their podcasts. Visit the SAPIENS podcast site for more information.

ABOUT THE SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards (also known as “The Shortys”) honor the most innovative work in digital and social media by brands, agencies and organizations.

Founded in 2008, the Shortys’ notable previous winners include Malala Yousafzai, Trevor Noah, Michelle Obama, Conan O’Brien, Lady Gaga, Lizzo, and brands such as Marvel Studios, HBO, Red Bull, Airbnb, Nestle, and BMW.

The Shortys’ mission is to celebrate, inspire and push the boundaries of excellence in digital storytelling. Entries are judged on the merits of creativity, strategy, and engagement by the Real Time Academy, a body of hand-selected industry experts and leaders. The public can also select their favorite Shorty Awards contenders during Audience Honor Voting.

Currently, the Shortys have two annual competitions, the flagship Shorty Awards and Shorty Impact Awards dedicated to honoring the best work with a positive social impact.

ONLINE

Sapiens website
Sapiens on LinkedIn
Sapiens on Twitter
Sapiens on Instagram
Sapiens on Threads
Shorty Awards website
Shorty Awards on LinkedIn
Shorty Awards on Twitter
Shorty Awards on Instagram
Shorty Awards on YouTube

CONTACT

Chip Colwell
chip@sapiens.org
212.683.5000

Caitlin Hornshaw
Awards Manager, Shorty Awards
caitlin@shortyawards.com

 

A university lecture, with a dash of jumping jacks

Study finds possible value in class exercise breaks

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A university professor has found a way to help students – and himself – power through long lecture classes: exercise breaks. 

In a new study, a professor at The Ohio State University showed that five-minute exercise sessions during lectures were feasible and that students reported positive impacts on their attention and motivation, engagement with their peers and course enjoyment.

The results may not be particularly surprising, but they do suggest a solution for a long-standing issue in college classrooms, said Scott Hayes, author of the study and associate professor of psychology at Ohio State.

“Nobody can stay on task for 80 minutes straight without their mind wandering and their attention waxing and waning,” Hayes said.

“If you give students a break and get their bodies moving for just a few minutes, it can help them get their minds back to the lecture and probably be more productive. I know it helps me, as well.”

The study was published recently in the journal Frontiers in Sports and Active Living.

Hayes said he was inspired to do this research by a similar laboratory-based study of how students responded to exercise breaks during a single video lecture.

That study found positive results, but Hayes wondered if it could work in the real world of in-person university lectures, over the course of a full semester.

He tested it in four of his own classes. One to two student-led exercise sessions (five minutes each) were implemented in each lecture during upper-level psychology courses with 20 to 93 students. The classes were 80 minutes long.

At the beginning of the course, Hayes broke the class into small groups, and each group was responsible for developing a five-minute exercise session. Hayes reviewed the exercise sessions beforehand to make sure they were workable and safe.

“I wanted the students to design and lead the sessions because I thought it would help them buy into the idea, and help with their engagement and investment,” he said.

Hayes admitted that the sessions were sometimes a bit awkward at the beginning of the semester.  The students didn’t know exactly how to act, and they weren’t used to doing something like this during a class.

But students soon got into the flow and had fun with the sessions. Some of the exercises students included were jumping jacks, lunges, overhead press (with a backpack) and hamstring stretches.

Hayes said a few student groups got creative in designing their sessions.

“One of the groups designed a theme of going to an orchard and picking apples. So they had their fellow students reaching up as if they were picking apples from a tree and reaching down to put them in a basket,” Hayes said.

Hayes said he knew the program was a success when students spontaneously provided anonymous comments with their end-of-semester students evaluations. One student’s comment reflected a common response: “I enjoyed the exercise breaks in class and really felt like they motivated me to focus more.”

In one of the classes studied, Hayes gave the students a survey at the end of the course about the exercise sessions.  All the students reported that they had never taken a class that had an exercise break during the lecture.

Students rated the exercise breaks as improving attention, enjoyable, and improving peer engagement.  They reported that, compared to other classes, they preferred the class with an exercise break and they would like more classes to offer such sessions.

One open question could be whether these exercise sessions improved student learning and grades.  Hayes said that is beyond the scope of this study, and it would be difficult to do that kind of research.  Comparisons of different classes, at different times of day, and with a variety of teachers, would make comparisons challenging to make.

But this study found that exercise breaks were feasible to do and that students enjoyed them and found them useful – which he said may make it worthwhile for other faculty to try.

Some already have.

“Two colleagues in the psychology department here at Ohio State have told me they have started exercise breaks in their courses,” Hayes said. “It may be catching on.”

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

DOI

10.3389/fspor.2024.1358564 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Establishing the feasibility of exercise breaks during university lectures

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Apr-2024