(Scientific American)
Concerns have recently risen about the spread of misinformation on social media, and this issue was one of the most prominent issues during the US presidential election in 2020, and its impact continued during the “Covid-19” pandemic, as it played an important role in Russia’s propaganda efforts in its war against Ukraine, and these fears are fully justified. Believing false information, with its repercussions, is believed to contribute to shaping the future of nations, and to have a significant impact on our health as individuals and groups.
One popular theory is that some people are deceived by false information they encounter on the Internet due to their lack of digital literacy skills, a vague term that describes the way one deals with and explores the digital world. This theory also states that a person who lacks digital literacy skills is more likely to believe and share misinformation with others, and accordingly, people who do not have enough digital knowledge play a big role in spreading misinformation.
This conclusion seems self-evident, but the relationship between digital knowledge and the believability of false information has rarely been studied, but the understanding of the potential relationship between digital knowledge and what people share on social media is greatly deficient, and as researchers concerned with the study of information psychology On the Internet, we wanted to explore these potential links.
Perhaps most surprisingly, even people with a wealth of digital knowledge were not immune to clicking the “share” button of fake news. This may seem surprising, if you have enough numerical knowledge and can better distinguish between true and false news, why not be less likely to share false information? Perhaps we can glean the answer to this question from our previous research work on why people share misinformation. We found that although most people don’t want to spread misinformation, social media is distracting. They quickly scroll through her posts and news, and their interest is drawn behind social verification and other ratings, like how many likes their posts will get, which means we often forget to ask ourselves if it’s true or false when we want to make a quick decision about Share this news or not.
In conclusion, it is surprising that digital knowledge may not be a significant factor in predicting who is spreading misinformation on social media. Right, before you hit the “Share” button.