Aric Sigman

Aric Sigman is a British psychologist.[1]

Early life

Sigman was born in the United States into a Jewish family. His father and grandfather were both professors of medicine.[2] He has lived in Britain since 1973.[2]

Career

He has made appearances on day-time TV, such as in 1994 in the role of an Agony Uncle giving advice to children on the Saturday Morning children's programme Live & Kicking.[3] He lectures in schools on the subject of PSHE (Personal, social health and economic) education.[1]

He has published medical journal articles and has authored books on alcoholism, eating disorders and children's screen time.[1]

Controversy

In 2009, an opinion by Sigman was mis-used as the basis for articles in the Daily Mail and other outlets which falsely implied that using Facebook could directly cause cancer. Sigman's article did not mention cancer.[4] NHS issued a statement emphasizing that Sigman's study was not a systemic review, and the studies cited by Sigman did not support these conclusions.[4] Physician and science writer Ben Goldacre has said that Sigman's work includes cherry picking of other scientist's studies to support a specific view.[5] In response to these claims Sigman said that "It was clear that my article on daycare wasn't a scientific paper."[6]

One such example of this is in his use of the paper "The Internet Paradox" in his Article "Well connected? The biological implications of 'social networking'".[7] In this article, he cites the 1989 paper The Internet Paradox", which finds a weak correlation between Internet use and depression/loneliness.[8] However, when the same authors revisited their sample group 3 years later, and found that the observed effects had dissipated, and that "This sample generally experienced positive effects of using the Internet on communication, social involvement, and well-being."[9]

References
  1. "Bio". Aricsigman.com.
  2. Round, Simon (8 October 2009). "Interview: Aric Sigman". Jewish Chronicle.
  3. "Live and kicking" (TV). BBC. 12 March 1994.
  4. "Facebook 'cancer risk'". nhs.uk. 3 October 2018. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  5. Goldacre, Ben (23 September 2011). "The dangers of cherry-picking evidence". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  6. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/04/daycare-article-not-scientific-paper
  7. Sigman, Aric (1 February 2009). "Well connected? The biological implications of 'social networking'" (PDF). Biologist. 59. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  8. Kraut, Robert; Patterson, Michael; Lundmark, Vicki; Kiesler, Sara; Mukophadhyay, Tridas; Scherlis, William (1998). "Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being?". American Psychologist. 53 (9): 1017–1031. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.53.9.1017. ISSN 1935-990X. PMID 9841579.
  9. Kraut, Robert; Kiesler, Sara; Boneva, Bonka; Cummings, Jonathon; Helgeson, Vicki; Crawford, Anne (January 2002). "Internet Paradox Revisited". Journal of Social Issues. 58 (1): 49–74. doi:10.1111/1540-4560.00248. ISSN 0022-4537.
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