Update on: ‘Article titles in the era of the internet’

Exponential growth in read counts continues.

As ResearchGate seems to assign subjects to papers based on the subjects in the author’s profile, rather than the paper itself, all sorts of astonishing achievements are being reported for this very modest one-page-long book review… and for myself… Last week’s achievements as example. (It would have been nice if any of the achievements after the first two would have been meaningful!)

Week ending December 31st, 2017
Your project reached 200 reads R for Photobiology
Your project reached 400 reads Sensory ecology of plants and pre-emptive acclimation.
Your publications reached 50,000 reads
With 3,852 new reads, your article was the most read article from your department Thinking, Fast and Slow (by Daniel Kahneman)
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from your department
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Molecular Biology
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from Statistics
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from Forestry
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Botany
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Forestry
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Agronomy
With 3,852 new reads, your article was the most read article from your institution
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Ecology
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Agricultural Plant Science
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from Finland
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from your institution
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from Agricultural Plant Science
With 3,852 new reads, your article was the most read article from Finland Thinking, Fast and Slow (by Daniel Kahneman)
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from Botany
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Statistics
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from Finland
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from  Ecology
With 3,922 new reads, your publications were the most read publications from your institution
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from your department
With 3,928 new reads, your contributions were the most read contributions from Agronomy
Your article reached 40,000 reads Thinking, Fast and Slow (by Daniel Kahneman)

So, we need to just ignore ResearchGate reads, as they mean little if anything about the impact of one’s own scientific research…