(Reporter)
– The edge He has a strange story about how a well-meaning teenager inadvertently spoiled more than 4,000 social science studies. In July, Sarah Frank published a profile Video on Tik Tok Advise on how to make extra money with “side business”. In one of her tips, she suggested her followers to go to Prolific.co, where sociologists pay people to fill out questionnaires for their studies. Frank explained how she could make about $15 a day doing this, and the advice went viral. Over 4 million people watched the video, and soon Prolific was inundated with tens of thousands of people who signed up. the problem? Almost all of them were young women and girls, like Frank, and the unknown location only had screening methods to ensure that the studies presented a good mix of demographics in responders.

The story suggests that scientists initially struggled to understand what was going on – look at this tweet He complains that one study ended up being 91% female – until the mystery was solved. The Verge reports that an estimated 4,600 studies have been “disrupted” by a rush of newcomers, but a prolific CEO says the vast majority could be saved. The site is now working on guarantees. As for Frank, who is now a student at Brown University, “it definitely didn’t occur to me that the video was going to explode,” she says. “I just posted it to my friends and followers, not to get to it in the end.” as a post in futuristic He notes, “It just shows the power that even a teen with a modest following can have using technology platforms like TikTok.” (Read more TikTok stories.)