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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Verified account
@GidMK

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Health NerdVerified account

@GidMK

Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him

Sydney, New South Wales
theguardian.com/profile/gideon…
Joined November 2015

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    Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

    A bunch of headlines talking about a new "brain training" app and how amazing it is Except, it's all nonsense, brain training is still mostly bunk. Threadpic.twitter.com/5XtgIBg9YY

    3:16 PM - 21 Jan 2019
    • 7 Retweets
    • 16 Likes
    • zen148203zen Charlotte Moore🥤Smoothie PR Fern Jason Carolynne B *Fully Pfizered*😷 Silver 💧 Ian "Department of Diseasology" 🍩 Musgrave stephanie ❄️ ✨ hi ✨
    1 reply 7 retweets 16 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        The study itself is here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00002/full#note2 …

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        Basically, researchers randomized 75 young people, got them to either play on the app, play Bingo, or do nothing for a month, and then tested their cognitive abilities The app group did a bit better on one test, and about the same on anotherpic.twitter.com/zZJplxF30R

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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      4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        And when I say 'a bit better', emphasis on the 'bit' The results are presented as "significant" but just LOOK AT THIS GRAPHpic.twitter.com/8EiqVhdBig

        3 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        There is an apparent ~3% difference in the scores, but this is described as "significant" throughout Is this significant? It's really hard to tell because the single measure used is very hard to relate to actual lifepic.twitter.com/UqvlW2YI6a

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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      6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        It's also worth noting that in previous studies this test has given 7 statistics, but in this paper only one was presented Not necessarily an issue, but a bit oddpic.twitter.com/s85VrUMpMN

        2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        Show this thread
      7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        And on the other measure, there was no significant improvement over control of the Decoder app grouppic.twitter.com/p8RC6j88Lh

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        Show this thread
      8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        The study also talks a lot about how much more people enjoyed the app than the Bingo control, but if you read the description it's not hard to tell why Bingo sounds hella boringpic.twitter.com/eg6qXwZQ0B

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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      9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        It's also worth noting that there are some pretty significant conflicts of interest at play here The people who evaluated the app are likely to directly financially benefit from this studypic.twitter.com/eNddOD8vQo

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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      10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        So, firstly, this study has NOTHING AT ALL to do with ADHD, or mental health in general

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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      11. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        The authors are HOPEFUL that it MIGHT be used in mental health settings, but as yet there has been no research on this whatsoever

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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      12. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        Secondly, even if we take the research at face value, it's a bit vague and meaningless For one thing, 75 participants is probably not enough to have much confidence in such a small difference

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        Show this thread
      13. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        A realistic headline would be "App improves scores on one brain test (slightly), but doesn't do anything for other intelligence measures" Not as catchy, perhaps, but a bit more accurate

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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      14. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        If we take a more skeptical viewpoint of the whole thing, though, a piece of research conducted by game designers to demonstrate that their game is better than a strange Bingo control in a small group of people might be considered to be...problematic

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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      15. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 21 Jan 2019

        Ultimately, there's still no good evidence that "brain training" games do much except make you better at performing tasks similar to the game, which is almost entirely useless to everyone's life Just play something fun instead

        2 replies 3 retweets 3 likes
        Show this thread
      16. End of conversation

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