Introduction of journal metrics serves the journals to boast their scientific standing among their competitors. Publishing manuscripts in high-impact factor journals serves the authors to feel good; however, the factor implies the collective impact of the journal articles and hence, author(s) of each article published in the journal could not use the Impact factor score as a measure of "actual impact" of her/his article, though citation counts may be of help for this purpose.
Now, what it (impact factor) actually means to the authors, pertaining to their article(s) published ?
Publishing in a high impact factor journal adds reputation, prestige and ego to authors. However, the real impact of their published articles lies in the number of citations. Further, impact factor can not always be related or proportional to the quality of a research work.
That is precisely the crux of the problem. When they are not in use for the authors, but used only to boast the reputation of the journals, why do or why should the authors care? For satisfying the ego? If so, is it good?
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