Meta, very meta

So I learned this, wasting time on the internet:

Scientists, doing as usual the important work of telling everyone what they already know, have discovered that a majority of 18 to 29 year olds who go online on any given day are just fucking around:

The report from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that on any given day, 53 percent of 18 to 29 year-olds go online just to have fun or pass time.

That should explain all those kitten videos.

The report finds that the amount of time people spend tooling around on the Web doing nothing corresponds with age. Only 12 percent of people over 65 say they went online the previous day for no particular reason. Of those aged 50 to 64, the study found 27 percent answered yes to the same question.

[AP]

No shit, right?

I mean, which one of you is doing your day job right now?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Don't tell PETA

From the masters of the genre:

Teenage Wasteland

It's my sad duty to report that my alma mater is peddling the lowest of no-shit science.

Consider this headline:

Teens with autism face major obstacles to social life outside of school, study finds

Let me see if I can unpack this one: A disease whose defining feature is that it "affects the brain's normal development of social and communication skills" is an obastacle to a teen's social life?

Really? No shit!

Here's hoping that the article itself makes a more nuanced case than the headline.

The study found that conversational impairment and low social communication skills were associated with a lower likelihood of social participation.

Sorry, but no. Evidently it's science now to claim that lacking the tools to participate socially is a barrier to social participation.  I look forward to such follow-up studies as "Teens with severe acne suffer from pimples on their face" and "Puberty causes awkward changes to a teenagers body".