'Kardashian Index' Exposes Scientists With Overblown Social Profiles

The "Kardashian Index" measures the discrepancy between a scientist’s social media profile and publication record.

kardashian

In addition to publishing academic papers, modern researchers often use social media to build up their public personas.

University of Liverpool geneticist Neil Hall noticed that many scientists with popular social media profiles were overvalued based on metrics other than their works’ scientific integrity.

Hall created the “Kardashian Index” to measure the discrepancy between a scientist’s social media profile and publication record. The metric provides a direct comparison of Twitter followers and citation numbers.

Hall points out that social media makes it easy for people to build impressive public profiles by “essentially ‘shouting louder’ than others.”

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