It has become increasingly common for academics to use social media to communicate with wider audiences. Twitter, like many other social platforms, typically measures success in terms of numbers of followers, likes and retweets, but this only tells us something about the spreading of messages but not necessarily whether the content of the messages is understood or embraced. One way to ascertain this is through network and language analysis, which, used together, can tell us how effective the communication is. Economists tweet less, mention fewer people and have fewer conversations with strangers than a comparable group of experts in the sciences, and use less accessible language with words that are more complex, with more abbreviations and with a more distant tone. Their tweets are less personal and less inclusive than those used by scientists. This is what appeared in April 2017 when we gathered data on tens of thousands of tweets from the Twitter accounts of both the top 25 economists and 25 scientists as identified by IDEAS and Science, including the top three economists at the time, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, and Erik Brynjolfsson and, on the other side, the top three scientists, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, and Richard Dawkins. At that time those accounts covered roughly two thirds of all the following. The timing is significant because 2016 has been declared the year of post-truth politics, the year in which appeals to emotions (pathos) superseded the significance of factual evidence-based information (logos), affecting people's constructions and interpretations of events. This has been accompanied by the growing prominence of political "alt" movements (e.g. UKIP, the Alt-right) and their aggressive, provocative, and populist narratives, and "fake news" leading to political shock events such as Brexit and the Trump election. The relatively low traction of economists in these public debates has been and continues to be an important issue. Does the public not trust economists? Don't they understand... Question: What is true about the economics guys? Options: - People listen to them - not enough information - They change how they speak online - They post about economics === The correct answer is
They post about economics

So, there I was. Hanging out in my swimsuit, hair drawn back, just minding my own business and relaxing in the delicious, luxurious Scandinave Spa, a stone's throw from Whistler town centre. The husband and I had split up for the afternoon he had decided to traverse the peaks of Whistler and Blackcomb on the peak2peak gondola, and I'd chosen a slightly less terrifying mountain vista to enjoy. It was just one of those days where we'd decided happily to do two different things, and meet up afterwards for a spot of dinner. Cascading down the hillside, the Scandinave Spa's rustic installations nestle on the edge of the Lost Lake Park spruce and cedar forest and promises to both relax and invigorate you, and provide an escape from daily stress. With several levels of hot and icy plunge pools, sauna and steam rooms, everyone wanders from indoor to outdoor relaxation spots from sun-soaked spot to waterfall spout back massages. Bliss. It's also a place where silence is "essential to the experience. By embracing silence one finds inner stillness, leading to complete relaxation." To be honest, most people who couldn't be quiet i.e. me just talked in hushed tones, but it made for a super chilled few hours. Until I was sitting in one of the steam rooms (does that make the title clickbait? Sorry using the title 'steam room with Lady Gaga' made it sound as though we were chickens cooking in a slowcooker) and a very, very slim blonde lady slipped in. Queen Gaga herself. I've got to be honest, sticking to the 'no eye contact with other people who are chillaxing' rule, I didn't pay very much attention to what was going on, but after 25 minutes or so of basting relaxing, I stretched languidly my bones like toffee and wandered out to the next room, and looking up from the drinks table, had to blink several times as she followed me out. Trying to play cool, I tried keep a poker face (after all, she was there to relax and recuperate in the middle of a big Canadian tour, she didn't need a random Kiwi gawking at her)... Question: How long was the author probably in the presence of Lady Gaga? Options: - probably about an hour or two - probably 5 minutes - not enough information - probably 4 hours or so === The correct answer is
probably about an hour or two

In this confessional age, TV, radio and print rely for much of their content on the sad stories of those 'victims' of life. The story goes something like this: There is the future 'victim' getting on with their quotidian activities and whoosh, they are whisked into a life of gambling, drugs, sex or junk food addiction. After years of struggle, they finally find redemption and become good people again. As in any good tale of redemption, there has to be a 'reason' for why our 'victim' fell off the rails. Take your pick: they were molested, their parents ran away from home, they were denied desserts except on Sundays. Just thinking about it brings a tear to my stony face. How can you not be moved by tales such as these. What is the precipitating cause of the misery in my life? Well, my mother was French and my father was English. And to make things worse, I was brought up Catholic! Yes folks, in today's shorthand of grievance, I'm a half-breed straddling Canada's great language divide and a religious bigot. My hometown was a mixture of French and English-speaking people and the results of their miscenagation. You could never tell by someone's last name who spoke your language (For instance, my good friend P. Arsenault spoke the Queen's English and my cousin Sean Doyle wouldn't have recognized an Oxford Dictionary if you shoved up his nose). As children, we were segregated by language; all the French-speaking kids went to one side of the school where they spoke French all the time. I was fortunate enough to be sent to the English side of the school and got to speak my native tongue. My parents decided my brother and sister wouldn't be quite so lucky. In an effort to bridge the great language divide, they both spent six years learning everything in French and mingling with the French people (My parents did this because it was the firm belief of all forward-thinking families that whatever road you took would be much smoother if you could speak both of Canada's official languages. As it turns out for my siblings and... Question: parents believe that Options: - the segregation is good - the religion catholic - not enough information - whatever road you took would be much smoother if you could speak both of Canada's official languages === The correct answer is
whatever road you took would be much smoother if you could speak both of Canada's official languages