The Social Media Effect

Last weekend, I had a spirited debate about the validity of using Facebook (and by extension social media) as a respected and credible news source. While social media certainly has many attractive qualities, chiefly it’s speed and widespread reach, it has many downsides that override much of the good it can do. In fact, when look evaluated as a whole, social media has the ability to do serious damage.

The one conceit I have to make right up front is that social media, by virtue of the diverse user base, can bring nearly limitless points of view and sources of news to millions of people. Anyone that has viewed a Facebook or Twitter feed can appreciated seeing the numerous status updates and the various topics they touch on. Stories ranging from sports to politics can dominate a users screen, depending on the friends they have and the pages they subscribe too.

The problem with this setup is that it relies on the intelligence and discretion of users, something that has to be questioned every time there is a story about someone who decides to click a link that promises to make them rich or sell the great products for cheap only to have their computer infected with a massive virus. These situations are almost always a scam and too often dupe users into falling for them. The same unfortunate traits of users often apply to the propagation of news across social media. One only has to look at stories like this, about a miraculous cancer cure, that spread like wildfire on the internet and turned out to be completely wrong.

Certainly some blame should fall on the users of sites like Facebook that post stories such as this, only to find out later that what they shared was completely bogus. After all, users are the ones blindly posting these stores. But why should we blame average people for being, well, average? Average internet users aren’t trained researchers, nor are they wildly discriminant about what they post. People have been getting things wrong by word of mouth for as long as there has been word of mouth. The problem with social media becoming the 21st century word of mouth is the sheer amount of people it can reach in such a short time and that the information is posted to one of many recognized websites, such as Facebook, that, for good or bad, people put their trust in.

The other massive problem with social media news is the desire of users to get in on, or ahead of, the current hot trend. One of the downsides of the speed with which social media works is the unfortunate side effect of reducing the attention span of the average user to something akin to the average goldfish.

Three weeks ago everyone was talking about Jeremy Lin and his on court exploits in the NBA. Now he is a social media has been and the Kony 2012 movement has not only run it’s course, but we are already in Kony backlash mode. The problem with mentioning these two topics in the same sentence is that they are on such opposite sides of the spectrum of importance that it does a disservice to both by treating them the equally. Overstating the importance of Jeremy Lin in the world of basketball is a fair bit different than turning a Ugandan warlord, guilty of crimes against humanity, into an internet sensation.

Having such a weighty topic treated with cavalier abandon by so many is appalling. Many people feel that watching the Kony 2012 video or click a link to donate a few dollars is a good thing, but I see it as a tremendous act of disrespect and devaluing of ithe topic by marginalizing it and making Kony 2012 no more important than the latest sports or media sensation. Using social media for news requires very little investment in the subject matter. Everything is presented as over the top important, demanding immediate attention and designed for maximum emotional impact, rather than maximum dissemination of information which a more traditional curated and tiered news outlet would aim to achieve.

I hope, like many others, that the Kony 2012 phenomenon will prompt change, but not the change many others are hoping for. I hope that this will be a reflection point for our society about what we consider credible news and the validity of using social media as means to get information.

The Logical Fallacy of All Things Tim Tebow

To watch Tim Tebow and his fan base one almost has to have a degree in psychology to point out all the logical fallacies that are used to defend him and shape the discord on him. To some of his most loyal supporters, the simple fact that I'm relying on something as deep as psychology to make my case against him, is evidence of my bias towards him. I am just one of the many Tebow “haters” that attempt to tear him down, despite his numerous accomplishments. To address this, I'd like to say right up front that I am no fan of Tebow. I don't think he is a good quarterback. I don't believe him to be inspirational or humble. Having said that, he has had instances where he looks decent and he has won some games, most notably the Bronco's playoff game against the Steelers.

There, you see that? I gave him some credit. He does have certain skills and if he was a running back and not a quarterback, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Tebow has the reputation of being a winner. This stems from his success in high school and college as a top quarterback at Florida. I am not going to address those aspects of his career in depth, as my argument deals only with the belief that he isn't a good NFL quarterback and what props him up is a large system of smoke and mirrors. One cannot deny the fact that he has continued his trend of winning at the NFL level. He has won a number of games in his first year as a starting quarterback, but this is where the logical fallacies begin.

Fans of Tebow will point out that he won seven of eleven games as starter. This, however, falls into the category of an observational selection fallacy. In this type of fallacy a person will, “pointing out favorable circumstances while ignoring the unfavorable.” (http://nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm) I can't deny that he won those seven games. What gets ignored in all of the talk about winning is that, in that stretch of games, Tebow and the Bronocs didn't beat a single playoff team. The playoff teams they did face in that time, the Patriots and the Lions beat them by a total of 86-35. All the teams that the Broncos did beat were either mediocre or bad. College has a stat called Strength of Schedule that helps rank teams based on quality of opponents. If we were to apply this metric to the Broncos, they wouldn't be ranked very high.

While it is fair to argue that a win is a win, I am judging the player and not the team. I have to examine the games in more detail in order to draw a clear picture. It isn't hating to want to examine everything in detail to see if it holds up to close scrutiny. I am also labeled a hater for not giving Tebow credit for his “miraculous” comebacks. Former Minnesota Viking great Cris Carter said on ESPN, “the guy that gets you out of a hole is usually the guy with the shovel.” He was alluding to Tebow's awful play until the very end of games where he made a few plays. To put some numbers onto how bad Tebow was during the eleven games he started paints an even bleaker picture. From week seven on Tebow was 79 for 195 for a 40% completion percentage. If this was baseball, Tebow would be the best hitter ever. Sadly, as a quarterback, those numbers are terrible. Between the Lions and Patriot games, Tebow had four turnovers. If you add in his turnovers from the Buffalo game, where he had three interceptions and two fumbles (one lost) and it gets even more grim. Yes, those games were against better defenses than most of the other teams he faced, but it also correlates to number of pass attempts. In the games where he had the most turnovers (Buffalo and Detroit), he was asked to throw the ball a lot. In fact, the pattern in his stats shows that if Tebow is asked to throw the ball more than approximately twenty times, the amount of mistakes he makes jumps measurably.

Now, you might say that asking any quarterback to throw more would result in more turnovers and you would be correct. However, his low attempt games have to be taken into consideration as well. In the win over Kansas City on November 13, Tebow was 2/8 for 69 yards and a TD. That is pretty terrible, especially when you take into account that he got 56 yards on one play to Eric Decker. Looking at the defensive stats tells you where the game was won. The Broncos recorded four sacks and twelve hits on the two Kansas City quarterbacks that played.

These numbers lead to the next logical fallacy that Tebow fans employ, which is that when they win it's Tebow playing well and when they lose it's the defense or the coaching staff fault in some way. Looking at the numbers, it seems that it has more to do with the defense in the wins and the lack of quarterback play in the losses. The defense averaged in the range of 55 – 65 tackles and 2-6 sacks with around 5 hits on the quarterbacks in all of those games. They gave up big numbers in the Detroit and New England games, but were held to fairly low point totals, with the exception being against New England where they put up 23 points. None of those 23 points came off a pass. They were all rushing touchdowns, of which Tebow had two (along with two fumbles). Didn't I say he was a good running back?

It can't always be Tebow doing the winning and everyone else doing the losing. Looking at the Broncos win against Pittsburgh, there is no denying that Tebow had some nice plays. He accounted for a ton of their offense. However, he only completed 10/21 passes en route to racking up 316 yards with 80 of that coming on the winning play. When you look further at the statistics, you see the Broncos receivers gave him a ton of help, having huge plays down field with long plays of 80 yards for Decker, 40 yards for Fells and 30 yards for Royal. Big plays and big numbers tell me what I saw while watching the game, the Pittsburgh defense looked horrible and couldn't tackle or cover. Pittsburgh implemented the wrong defensive scheme and it burned them. Watching the game, the Pittsburgh corners were routinely beaten down field and Tebow simply had to sling it.

Finally, we come to the Bronco's vs the Patriots playoff game. A wonderful 45-10 drubbing at the hands of one of the top quarterbacks of the era, Tom Brady. Brady broke records galore in this game and Tebow could only muster 9/26 for 136 yards and zero touchdowns. That is terrible, even if Tom Brady doesn't have a night like he did. While the victory over the Steelers was a nice feather for Tebow's cap, this is the same Patriots team that has been ranked at the bottom on defense all season and gave up 23 points to the Bronco's the last time they played. This speaks back to who the Bronco's actually beat during their “magic” run. That is to say no one. It also speaks to the fallacy that when the Bronoc's lose it isn't Tim Tebow's fault it must be the coaching or the defense. Watching the Patriots systematically take apart Denver in all aspects of the game should quiet that theory a bit.

I held off on posting this, until the end of Tebow's run had come, because stories like this need an ending to give them perspective. Having Tebow's run end on a bad note allows us to look back at all the other bad notes he has had with some real perspective on the football he played and not the person he is, because that is the last defense Tebow and his supporters have; he is a good person. I'm not concerned with Tebow as a person and have never tried to directly attack that aspect of Tebowmania, but I have to make an exception here.

Several great points were made in the article, It's Ok to Hate Tim Tebow about the general fallacy and fairy tale surrounding Tim Tebow. To summarize some of the most salient points of the article, Tim Tebow was a top ranked quarterback while in high school. He won two National Championships while as a member of the Florida Gators and was taken in the first round of the NFL draft. As the author, Andrew Sharp, points out all of those facts would qualify him as an accomplished athlete, not the underdog his supporters would like to believe he is. He has been on top for his entire football playing career and now that he plays at the top and has been found lacking we are to feel sorry for him? I don't buy it. I don't feel sorry and I don't feel bad levying just criticism against him for his failings. His resume dictates such criticism. All other men with those credentials have had that criticism put against them and rightfully so. The moral fiber of their character should never enter into the equation of judgment when assessing their football skill.

Lastly, I would like to address the fallacy of Tim Tebow as a role model. He certainly looks and sounds the part. In many ways he is better than a lot of pro athletes that make headlines for shooting up strip clubs, but describing him as, “the best person ever” as Rick Reilly pretty much did in his slobbery love note, I'm sorry, article, I Believe in Tim Tebow, is ridiculous. Really? Ever? Better than teachers and doctors? Better than people who devoted their entire lives to a laboratory to bring us cures for Polio and other diseases? Better than every Nobel Peace Prize winner ever? Better than Pat Tillman, a football player who gave up the game he loves, millions of dollars and safety to join the military to fight and die for the values and country he believed in? The answer to all of those questions, in my book, is a resounding no. Tebow may be many things, it just seems to me that a lot of the things we hold him up as don't hold up to scrutiny. A line from the movie, A Knight's Tale, sticks in my head when I think about Tim Tebow. “You have been weighed. You have been measured. And you have been found wanting.”