I was thrilled to arrive at my talk and see the room nearly filled and received a wonderful introduction by one of my favorite people in the world, former APA president Patrick DeLeon, recipient of APA's prestigious Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology Award just two years ago at the same conference. From the questions and comments I felt that the talk went well and left with a feeling of success on treading that fine line between presenting research and theory and a controversial topic that has continuously been bashed in the press.

From the date that the press release was posted-about two weeks before the talk-I had been fielding interviews at the rate of about two to three or more a day. When the talk was completed that escalated to 5-10 a day with numerous requests for the PowerPoint slides from my talk. Having been through this before, and having presented such new research that papers had not yet been written and submitted for publication, I added a note to both the title of the PowerPoint file (Poke_Me_Presentation_8-6-2011_FINAL_DO_NOT_QUOTE_WITHOUT_PERMISSION.ppt) and the first slide which read:

IMPORTANT NOTE:
MANY OF THE RESULTS IN THIS PRESENTATION ARE NEW AND YET-TO-BE PUBLISHED. PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE SPECIFIC RESULTS WITHOUT CONSULTING WITH THE AUTHOR
(LROSEN@CSUDH.EDU)

Any time I received an e-mail request for the PowerPoint slides I responded and mentioned everything in the slide note above and said that if that were agreeable then I would send the talk in a separate e-mail. Every single reporter agreed and the slides were distributed to at least 50 news outlets. Needless to say, with a topic such as social networking, there was a lot of interest and I did a steady stream of interviews.

When the articles started to be posted I felt that many of the reporters handled it with evenhanded fairness of the information in my talk. Of course, some highlighted the negatives but in all of my interviews-including print, radio and television-I discussed how there were, indeed, both positives and negatives to social networking and requested that the reporter focus on both.

Much to my surprise, a couple of days after my talk I started to get interview requests to talk about how social networking made kids drink alcohol. I was stunned. Certainly I know I had not said that to any reporter nor had I mentioned that in my talk but just to be sure I went back and to my dismay discovered that on one slide (out of 76) I had summarized the results of a study (one out of 10 of our studies that I quoted) where we examined the predictive relationship between technology use-specifically looking at Facebook activities-and signs and symptoms of psychological disorders. Buried amidst a list of disorders where Facebook use predicted signs and symptoms I noticed that I had included Alcohol Dependence as one in which Facebook was a significant predictor. Being a scientist I guess that I was erring on the side of being complete but this was only one of 10 disorders that Facebook use predicted. If only I knew the ramifications of that one obsessive desire for completeness I never would have included that on the slide.

Here's what happened as best as I can recreate. On August 6th, the day of the presentation, as soon as the APA embargo was lifted an article appeared in a highly respected newspaper with the statement that read, "Rosen reported that among users of all ages, using Facebook more was associated with having a higher risk of antisocial personality disorder, paranoia, anxiety and alcohol use." I was exceedingly careful in both my talk and slides to indicate that Facebook use predicted signs and symptoms of certain disorders and indeed "alcohol dependence" was one of those disorders. How had my message gotten twisted to include "alcohol use" instead of signs and symptoms of alcohol dependence? And worse yet, when I Googled my name coupled with Facebook and alcohol, I realized that the story had been picked up by the (mostly conservative) media including one quite poignant article by Dr. Keith Ablow who proclaimed, "It should come as no surprise, then, that a new study by Dr. Larry Rosen, a professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills, shows that teenagers who use Facebook are more likely to use alcohol ... That makes sense: One drug (Facebook) should pave the way for the use of another (alcohol). And escaping reality by using drugs does indeed kindle irrational beliefs about oneself and the world." I can't tell you how many news organizations have picked up that tiny thread of the story mostly because I don't have the heart or stomach to look anymore. On the day the story came out there were dozens and I am sure that now there are more.

I immediately emailed the reporter who told me via e-mail, "I think when a person reads alcohol dependence, you immediately think more alcohol use. I used that term instead to sound less like jargon, and more easy to read." As a researcher who applies psychological science to real-world issues comments such as the reporter's scare me. I insisted that she print a retraction or correction and after several rounds of back and forth emails she agreed and printed a correction.

When all was said and done I realized that the fact that my talk title mentioned how social networking could "help" AND "harm" children meant nothing to the media. It turned into a several week slugfest with a few news titles appearing to both support my thesis and discuss both sides while others were clearly slanted toward the negative. Here's a sampling of article titles:

• "Heavy Use of Facebook linked with psychological problems for kids and teens, researcher says."
• "Facebook: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"
• "Facebook makes teens narcissistic, anxious and depressed - but also nice, social and engaged"
• "Facebook: Breeding Ground for Teen Narcissists?"
• "Heavy use of Facebook linked with psychological problems for kids and teens, researcher says"
• "Do social networking sites create anti-social behavior?"
• "Facebook making kids dumb"

And, my all-time favorite:

"Psychologist: Facebook Harmful to Kids"

Overall, I would say that maybe 10% of the articles dealt with both sides of the issue but that is to be expected since controversy sells newspapers.