For the first part it should analyze the claims being made according totwo of the six principles of scientific thinking:

Principle 1: Ruling out alternative explanations

Principle 2: Correlation vs. causation

Principle 3: Falsifiability

Principle 4: Replicability

Principle 5: Extraordinary claims

Principle 6: Parsimony (a.k.a. Occam's razor)

It is up to select the most relevant principles but, in every case, try to find the principles that the research description fails to follow. It should first define the general principle, then provide a detailed response showing how the research description specifically fails to follow the principle. Finally, what would need to be done to make sure the research description follows the principle. (For this part JUST TWO of the six scientific principles to discuss - do not use any of the three warning signs of pseudoscience)

For the second part, analyze the research description and the claims it makes to identify two different problems (or flaws) with the research methods that were used. A number of issues related to research methods and six different types of problems with research are described below. Discuss how two of these problems occur in the research description. When it identify the problem or flaw in the research methodology, make sure to define the problem (e.g., reactivity), provide a comprehensive explanation of how the problem might have affected the research, and also say what would need to be done to improve the research methodology (to fix the problem) in the research description.

Research Flaw 1: Reactivity

Research Flaw 2: Social desirability bias/positive impression management

Research Flaw 3: Unrepresentative or biased sample

Research Flaw 4: Confounding variables

Research Flaw 5: Lack of a control group

Research Flaw 6: Invalid measures

It's official: social media use causes depression

By Toby Flanagan

A group of scientists from Bakersfield University has a simple but life-saving message: put down your phone, now. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and all other social media are putting you in danger.

Or at least, that's the idea the Bakersfield researchers seem to conveying with their work, even if they don't state it explicitly. Their study, which was published last month, paints a clear and terrifying picture of the horrific effects of social media use on psychological well-being. It's already attracted considerable attention and is only likely to become more contentious in the coming weeks.

Their survey-based study collected data on a large number of demographic variables, social media use (in hours) and depression symptoms (as assessed by the newly-developed EOR test for depression, which came out recently). All subjects (n = 900) were first year University students between the ages of 18 - 20. Importantly, subjects were kept blind as to the purpose of the study and didn't know that its goal was to assess the relationship between social media use and depression. Because students didn't know the study's purpose, the researchers reasoned, their responses were unlikely to be affected. The data is genuine.

Looking at the data, researchers found a very strong positive correlation between social media use and scores on the EOR test for depression. The correlation was "sky high", according to lead researcher Bradley Kirk, with an absolute value of 0.9 (out of 1.0 maximum). Kirk stressed that such astronomical values were not typical. For comparison, most psychology studies find correlations of 0.2 and 0.3 (if that). When asked for comment, Kirk made no attempt to contain his excitement. "This relationship, which was several times stronger than that seen for other studies, clearly indicated a causal effect of social media on depression."

Kirk feels the confidence and immediate action is justified as he took all the proper steps to ensure the finding was legitimate. Before getting in touch with the press, he waited to see if other researchers were seeing the same strong relationship he was. He didn't have to wait long. Other scientists doing virtually identical studies, including Jacqueline Shanti from Summerset University, have since found similarly high correlations between EOR scores and social media use. Kirk's finding appears robust.

Since his finding was confirmed by Shanti, Kirk has pushed aggressively for action. He wanted to present his work before the Canadian Senate, which is currently debating a number of social media regulation policies. However, he was shocked to discover there was opposition to him by a decidedly small, but ferociously vocal, contingent in the Psychology community. He is currently on the defense.

Kirk's critics have argued that his study has a number of flaws. Most notably, his measure for depression, the EOR test, is not highly regarded by clinical psychologists. EOR test scores are only weakly connected to clinical depression - the very disorder they are supposed to predict. Another criticism leveled at Kirk's study is that it focuses exclusively on young University students, a group that uses social media in a very specific way. Critics have connected that it is unwise to automatically generalize effects on social media on students (however strong they seem now) to other age groups. Risks for these other groups, which differ in key features, could be lower or higher. The final criticism is that Kirk is acting too strong and too soon. Kirk's study, and Shanti's work, are the only two to use this approach. Extreme action based around these studies, critics argue, is ill advised. The emphasis should not be on new regulations but more research.

In this respect, Kirk agrees with his critics. He has already successfully obtained funding for a new series of studies further exploring the phenomenon. He hopes others will join him. These works, he hopes, will finally silence his detractors. Only time will tell. Until then, it's probably best to limit your use of social media.