Positive Correlation Found Between Facebook Usage and Syphilis Infection

By John Farrier in Blogs & Internet, Health on Mar 24, 2010 at 4:23 pm

How long has it been since you ran an anti-virus scan? You’d better do it now because a recent study found that areas of Britain that show a heavy use of Facebook also show a great increase in the incidence of syphilis infection:

The virus has increased fourfold in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside, the areas of Britain where Facebook is most popular, because it has given people a new way to meet multiple partners for casual sexual encounters.

Professor Peter Kelly, director of public health in Teesside, said staff had found a link between social networking sites and the rise in cases, especially among young women.

Just to be careful, we did bloodwork on the Neatorama Facebook page, and it’s completely clean and safe.

Link via Geekologie | Photo: CDC

Tags: Facebook, syphilis

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Edward
Mar 24th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Perhaps this is so obvious as to be as big a joke as the article, but here goes anyway.

Correlation does not equal causation.
PJ
Mar 24th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Syphilis is caused by a bacterium (Treponema paiildum) so the anti-virus gag doesn’t work.
Timm
Mar 24th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Anyone who would suggest the two are related should cut his own tongue out because he has nothing of value to say.
IndieStonerDude
Mar 24th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
There’s no real correlation – it’s crap. I study stats, and I can tell you that I could find correlation between just about anything, probably even higher correlation thus stated in that bullsh*t story, and I could manipulate the data as well to get even higher correlation if I so wished.
sal
Mar 24th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
I’m guessing the other commentors here are facebook users. Way to get upset about the internet on the internet.

Truthfully, I believe it. Get a bunch of horny strangers networked together, someone’s bound to share a bug. When a community that’s 25% more likely to use network sites has seen a fourfold increase in syphillis, I’m not too surprised.
Craig
Mar 25th, 2010 at 9:03 am
Who did the “research”? The same guys who wrote that stupid Freakanomics book? Anyone want to buy my magic stick that repels tigers?
Splint Chesthair
Mar 25th, 2010 at 10:27 am
No one is arguing causation. Despite a popular internet meme giving it a bad connotation, correlation can be an important metric.

FTA:
“Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex.”

That is not an unreasonable theory. When casual sex becomes easier to find, incidences of unprotected casual sex, and thus infections are bound to increase.
Lasagne
Mar 25th, 2010 at 11:50 am
“In summary, Professor Kelly’s colleague says:

‘Our press release was simply trying to highlight the risks of casual sex. We did not make the claim that social networking sites are causing the rise in the incidence of syphilis.’”

Source: http://is.gd/aYROy

Also: Nice slut-shaming going on in the Telegraph article.
Ranjit
Mar 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
It’s a fabricated story. The Sun took the research, which dealt with the cases of syphilis in Middlesbrough and connected them with the finding that other cities in the area had an above average usage of socian networks (not Middlesbrough, though!).
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2904897/Sex-diseases-soaring brdue-to-Facebook-romps.html

The professional journalists (and not blogging amateurs) at the Daily Telegraph proceeded to report, that the researchers had put this “finding” forward.
Then, the rest of the quality media spread the “news” across the globe

via http://www.bildblog.de/
(a German printmedia watchdog blog)
Gesundheit
Dec 12th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
I really like it. Thanks for your post.

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