I started noticing awhile ago that you seem to have this pipeline in scientific/academic reporting that goes academic paper -> press release -> science journalists -> regular journalists -> Facebook/Reddit.

Even if the original authors never say anything about causation, inevitably the language of correlation (related to, is linked to, associated with, correlated with, coincides with, etc.) will turn into the language of causation (leads to, increases/decreases, has an effect on, causes, etc.) somewhere in this pipeline.

Then suddenly everybody around you is talking about how going to bed with shoes on causes headaches, or goes playing tennis increases longevity. There is some atrocious science journalism out there

I've seen plenty of papers that assume causation in the summary, with no evidence whatsoever, so bad science can occur at the source, too.