Common exposures are common

A California head-lice treatment business has had huge success in publicising its business with the claim that selfies are causing a  rise in nits among teenagers. The Herald mentions this in Sideswipe, the right place for this sort of story, but other international sites have been less discriminating.

There are no actual numbers involved, and nothing like representative data even if you’re in the South Bay area of central California. More importantly, though, there is no comparison group. The owner of the business, Mary MacQuillan, says “Every teen I’ve treated, I ask about selfies, and they admit that they are taking them every day.”  That’s probably only a slight exaggeration at most, but every teen she hasn’t treated has also probably been taking photos that way. It’s something teenagers do.  Common exposures are common.

So, why were news organisations around the world publicising this? The fact that it’s about teenagers and the internet goes a long way to explaining it.  It doesn’t need evidence because teenage use of technology is automatically scary and newsworthy: as Ms MacQuillan says ” I think parents need to be aware, and teenagers need to be aware too. Selfies are fun, but the consequences are real.”

You get the same thing happening with ‘chemicals’, as the dihydrogen monoxide parody website loves to point out

A recent stunning revelation is that in every single instance of violence in our country’s schools, …, dihydrogen monoxide was involved.