Used to be the motto for academic advancement was “publish or perish”. That was in the days of typewriters & handcarried drafts or snailmailed manuscripts.
I once believed that the `desktop publishing’ revolution would lead to an academic Renaissance. “Let a hundred flowers bloom” & that sort of thing. Instead, the result has been that predicted by the old data processing adage, “Garbage in, garbage out”.
Anyway, I was attempting to make a joke about `googling oneself’. Now, a monthly review of one’s exposure on the internet might be a sound component for an academician’s strategy for advancement, but daily, hourly, every minute?
That’s just narcissistic.
Yes, and if you are in academics, or have spent significant time in academics, you know that there is a very significant representation of sociopathic narcissists in academics.
You don't have to be stellar to be successful in academics, and too often it isn't that the cream rises, but that feces floats. I would bet that there is very little correlation between google hits and the quality, substance, and long-term impact of one’s research.
You may have seen the letter to Nature in which the former head of cancer research at Amgen wrote about his team's efforts to replicate data from ~60 ‘landmark’ cancer research articles (Cell, Science, Nature etc.). They could only replicate the results of I think 6. Each of these ‘landmark’ articles would have generated a ton of notoriety for the principle investigators involved, and their ‘google hits’ would have been high as a consequence. Nonetheless, the crap they produced meant little to the world.
You were absolutely right. Garbage in, garbage out. The system needs to be totally revamped.