Medical Journals and Social Media: More Alike Than Wanted?

The information age is a blessing and a curse at the same time. All of the world’s knowledge is now accessible on a smartphone but with that comes information overload and the inability to prioritize digestion of information. While social media broadcasts the private lives of billions around the globe, professional lives are affected likewise. Social media offers a platform to spread knowledge of any kind. True or false? Or is “post-truth” now knowledge, which has become sadly relevant in recent times. On various social media channels, news, opinions, and knowledge are published free, instantaneously, worldwide. All types of media files, on all devices, are now easy to comment, forward, like, or dislike. Our daily newspapers, weekly long reads, and monthly magazines are suffering now because of the competition of instant news and now have to redevelop their models of journalism as well as their business models. So are medical journals still in the ivory tower, unaffected by other streams of knowledge sharing? By far not, but their pure existence is protected by rules and regulations, customs and traditions. Some of these customs are more useful than others, but they are universally agreed upon by the scientific community. The pinnacle is a genuine and thorough peerreview process. Constantly aiming for highest quality in manuscripts, with often multiple loops of revisions, addressing major issues and minor details, are what gives a medical journal its soul. What sets us apart from unfiltered broadcasts of opinions and knowledge? This process is established and proven, it is the peer-review process. But it is time consuming; it demands effort and work. It demands the brightest minds in the field, fairness, and transparency. So does this great thing called peer review make us immune from becoming irrelevant in future years? By far not. The Science of Spine is fast evolving and new ideas, concepts, devices, techniques, solutions appear constantly. The temptation to bypass the process of publishing in a high-quality journal like Global Spine Journal is high. Quick and instantaneously one can make his or her findings known to the medical world. What is missing though, is trust. And trust is priceless. One can agree or disagree with the published findings, question its relevance, criticize methodology or conclusion. We would like to assure our readers that whatever is published in this journal is trustworthy medical knowledge. Our global group of reviewers are from around the world, all are specialists in spine and spine research groups, and they ensure that knowledge is balanced. Social media algorithms may lead to a filter of information—a bubble of knowledge is created that can be misleading. Peer review has no algorithms, but what peer review has is quality and fairness by top expert reviewers, dedicated to improving what is published here at Global Spine Journal, transparently and relentlessly. We always will stay open and curious to all kinds of new publishing. But we will always take great pride in our readers’ trust, curated by our group of reviewers and deputy editors.