Yeah, its an undergrad but aren't there still committees for these things? 'Informed consent' is ethics class 101! These are individual's opinions and whilst on the Internet and in the public domain (sort of), they still, nevertheless, should still belong to a person. Would people really use blog posts without the writers' consent? 'Overhearing' another person's conversation and using it in research would be ethically dubious (consider the early years of Mass Observation) so why should hovering around forums be any different? It would be interesting if someone who's been around on the forum for a while could get a copy of the paper and rip it to shreds with a red pen; "wrong, wrong, just wrong...where did you get that info from?!". Maybe it could be sent back to the undergrad, professor etc and set them straight! This should NEVER have gotten past an early draft of a proposal without revising of the ethics statements, let alone get past an ethics committee!
Again, I would like to point out that in the event that I get to do a mini piece of research on vaping, I would ask permission from the mods, and participants to volunteer in the research FIRST!
I've looked up this girl and her research and as far as I can make out, she's still doing her research, having just won a university grant of $5,000. Reading the title, I really don't understand it! I mean, it's a medical thing and yet how can you definitively use a forum for that? It is ethically and methodologically flawed! It removes the possibility of other mitigating factors! For example, 'I started vaping 6 months ago and I'm thirsty all the time!' might mean a correlation between vaping and thirst, or this person might have diabetes or have their central heating turned up too high- or my preferred option is that they always have a bacon sandwich for lunch and this makes them thirsty! Another example might be 'I started vaping a year ago and I get breathless whenever I do exercise'- OK so vaping might (MIGHT!) affect your breathing capacity negatively, or...did this person actually do exercise before they started vaping or could they not because of their smoking/weight/lifestyle etc etc etc! (I made up these examples btw!)
This research is so unbelievably flawed that the devil will wear ice-skates and hold the winter olympics in hell before that really goes anywhere!
Rant over... I quite enjoyed that...