Pop-Science

Another "am i allowed to talk about this?"

Can I tell you a secret?

I think my writing here verges on shallow, but I’m absolutely terrified to change that.

I don’t mean to completely discredit my writing about my own anxieties or my place in the world. I do recognize that these thoughts matter. I know it comforts me whenever I hear anyone else admit to being confused. When I read someone else’s words about being intimidated by the vastness of life, I feel like I am not the only one squinting at the map, wishing they had paid more attention to…well I don’t know but to SOMETHING.

But, for how much I ramble here about these anxieties, I do know that most of what I write is the “small stuff” (after all, it is Sweats the Small Stuff, so that’s my prerogative. You’re always free to click away). I get nervous, though, that this could make it seem that all of my day is spent drowning in the tchotchkes of my own little worries. This is not necessarily entirely true (not every day at least).

my brain sometimes feels like an I Spy book of potential missteps

The bulk of my day is usually spent feeling slightly befuddled as I force my brain and body into self-awareness. I puzzle over the miniature firings of muscles that allow me to ramble and the loops of white matter tracts that keep me well supplied with my own worrying thoughts. For 3 months, I puzzled over the intricacies of breastfeeding and the digestive systems of infants. (I was sad to learn that this does not actually make me a boob-and-baby-ologist, but instead a Certified Lactation Counselor)

Most of my time is spent as a Speech Language Pathology Master’s student trying to learn as much as I can about this (increasingly threatened) research and clinical work. Most of this work is on topics you probably haven’t heard of, but which have most certainly impacted your day-to-day life. These are the topics that put me up on my soapbox and send me on tangents with no determined word count.

they’re very cute little neurons

And yet, here. Where I can write about anything I want, I puzzle over my own anxieties. Which, while therapeutic for me, doesn’t offer you a particularly significant amount of functional information.

I would like to talk about the things that I know really matter. I would like to tell you about the secret, almost invisible language of how babies communicate their needs through minute tensions in their faces and hands. I want to shout from the roof tops that we just talked in class about emerging research that the quality of your voice is one of the most direct neurological representations of your emotions. This stuff is seriously so cool. Or at least I think so. I want to say more about it. To write about it.

But I’m very scared. Let’s remember I’m only in my first year of graduate study. Yes, I’ve done internships and research and all that. But I’m only just starting. I’m not sure that I’m qualified to say much of anything.

However, (do you see the theme of contradicting contradictions), if complicated (BUT EXTREMELY RELEVANT) scientific conversations are not being had in casual spaces, then what does that do to the information? It leaves all the most important and relevant scientific information in research articles. And while those research articles are admittedly incredibly important, I don’t think I’m alone in saying that they are not always what everyone WANTS to curl up with at night to read. They are almost designed to be intimidating.

you see it’s not bad just doesn’t look inviting per se (and yes this is a sample article because that seemed like the safest photo to choose)

This creates a trickle-down effect. The fancy scientist-y people read and write those research articles. Then, in theory, that information gets passed down to be used with the people the research actually serves. Once that information gets picked up by social media, there’s really about a 50/50 chance the information can go to someone who will break it down into digestible language or that it will end up with a self-proclaimed expert who interprets the research completely backward (if at all). A perfect system, right?

I’ve grown increasingly furious about the prestige shrouding of research as I’ve begun to work in healthcare and see the divide between how I’m being taught to speak to patients in language they can understand, while studies I reference are written with tangled verbiage.

And before anyone attempts to accuse me of being anti-science, I am very pro-science, but I don’t understand the benefit of shrouding research in unnecessary prestige other than for the accolades that come with using undigestible language.

Especially in healthcare research, where the studies are aimed to HELP people. Informed consent is shouted from the rooftops, and we KNOW what a danger misunderstandings of overly complex information can pose.

it’s not working quite this nicely

Then, you have people on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and news channels explaining the studies in more digestible language. But in the process of moving from a primary source to a secondary or tertiary one, you risk losing the accuracy of the information. And given that the original articles are intimidatingly difficult to double-check, you can end up with a huge void just ready to be filled with misinformation. When so many people are intimidated by the scientific literature and are being fed questionable (if not false) interpretations, it’s so much easier for people to have serious misunderstandings. Like the guy I ran into at the grocery store, who informed me with complete sincerity that the “blue Gatorade you’re buying is made with the tissue of aborted fetuses”. He didn’t seem to be under the influence of any substances except for some light brainwashing.

and here I was thinking it was filled with electrolytes

So, where do I fit in all of this? I’m just over here writing about my own anxieties. Well, this would be one of those anxieties. I hear discussions on podcasts I listen to for the giggles, with the hosts chatting about breastfeeding, and I whisper solutions under my breath as I hear them making accidental misunderstandings. I see online confusion around DeafBlindness and speech in general, and I cringe. But what can I do?

There’s information I want to share. In conversations and on here, but I’m very scared of how things get spun. I don’t want to say too much about what I study at school, because how reliable of a source can I be? But, I am also deeply unsettled by the reality that the majority of research is behind paywalls and complicated statistical equations. I find it very disconcerting waiting for the trickle-down of research. I don’t know exactly how to push back against that. If it’s alright with you, I might start weaving in the actual facts around what I spend my day studying (not my own speculation), as it’s relevant. Because this is the small stuff that I am sweating on a regular basis.

she is me :)

That’s all from me!

<3 Becky