Social Media—The Next Glass Ceiling?

Abstract

As female academic gastroenterologists who are active on social media (SoMe), we read with interest the article by Elfanagely et al. 1 The authors used the software program Croncyle to calculate Twitter influence scores in the field of gastroenterology in September 2020 and, in the individuals identified as high influencers, correlated this measurement with a variety of demographics. They concluded that the higher influence of individual gastroenterologists correlated with greater academic capital based on "conventional criteria," including higher academic status, prolific manuscript publications in higher-tier journals, and larger National Institutes of Health funding, and therefore, these individuals' posts were deemed more trustworthy.There are some notable concerns concluded from this study. Although the methods are not transparent (likely because of the proprietary nature of Croncyle), it is noteworthy that of the individual "top influencers" on SoMe identified by the program, greater than 75% were men. It was therefore not surprising that the correlations examined by the authors-namely, academic rank, publication record, and National Institutes of Health funding history, tracked with these predominantly male-dominated spaces. These findings reaffirm a wealth of evidence that particular aspects of traditional metrics for academic success are flawed and deeply rooted in gender bias. [2][3][4] An additional limitation of this study was the absence of acknowledgment of the disproportionate burden and unprecedented detriment that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on female academicians as it relates to their productivity. 5,6 This study extends the gender bias and academic inequity into the medical realm of SoMe. 7 The dearth of women gastroenterologists deemed trustworthy "SoMe influencers" as a result of the software program and factors determined to be standards for academic success both expands and entrenches gender bias in a growing public medium for consumption by peers, patients, lay people, and the media.We therefore call on the authors and the editors of Gastroenterology to rethink how success in the field of medicine ought to be evaluated and measured, specifically as it encompasses the SoMe platform, in the following ways.