Speaking magnificence science successfully is so vital, and plenty of scientists don’t fairly admire or perceive how troublesome it’s to combat misinformation on-line. “I feel in science there has at all times been this sense that if you happen to get the science appropriate, your job is finished,” Dr. Wong explains. “However that is not going to assist on this social media panorama the place persons are pushing misinformation and utilizing each software at their disposal, truly, for shock worth.”
Combating Misinformation Takes Particular Abilities
Certainly, the favored starvation for a greater understanding of magnificence merchandise in some methods invitations misinformation. Unhealthy recommendation is rampant throughout social media and on-line boards. For many individuals, Dr. Wong is their go-to professional (whether or not they know her in particular person, on-line, or parasocially) to deconstruct these myths. “Loads of the time I will get tagged in reels or folks will ship me reels with misinformation,” she says.
Even only a few years in the past, Dr. Wong would have been alone in correcting this info. Now? “Nowadays, half the time once I go to it, there’s already somebody correcting the reel within the credit. It’s so good to see, in comparison with, I do not know, 5 years in the past, once I felt very alone.”
The excellent news is that there are increasingly science communicators throughout social media. Reasonably than see them as competitors, Dr. Wong desires to assist them succeed. It’s a part of why she began Beauty Scicomm together with magnificence scientist Jen Novakovich. After all, speaking magnificence science successfully is the objective, however in addition they need to construct up different creators. “We need to create a little bit of a group so we can assist different science communicators on magnificence get began and get established extra simply,” she explains.
Actually, the important thing to Dr. Wong’s success, and the rationale so many individuals go to her with their magnificence science questions, is that she’s asking good questions and offering solutions in a approach that’s by no means condescending. Magnificence science is tough, with a variety of structural obstacles that make it troublesome to debate authoritatively. However Dr. Wong has overcome these challenges and constructed a profitable enterprise round science communication, all whereas inspiring a brand new era to go to high school and turn out to be magnificence scientists themselves.
