People who read Facebook article previews think they know more than they actually do

Authored by psypost.org and submitted by IronGiantisreal
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People who read Facebook article previews think they know more than they actually do

The short article previews provided by Facebook can make users think they know more than they actually do about an issue, according to new research published in Research & Politics.

“Social media are so different from traditional types of media. In decades past, audiences had to choose to turn on the TV or open a newspaper to receive political information. Today, we receive that information inadvertently while scrolling through our Facebook and Twitter feeds. What’s more, that information can come from our friends and family members. I find these new dynamics fascinating,” said study author Nicolas Anspach, an assistant professor of political science at York College of Pennsylvania.

In the study, a group of 320 participants read an article from The Washington Post about the safety of genetically modified foods. Another group of 319 participants read a mock Facebook News Feed containing four article previews, where one preview was about genetically modified foods. A third group of 351 participants, which was used as a control, did not read anything.

To test their knowledge of the subject, the participants were then asked six factual questions about genetically modified foods. To test their confidence, they were also asked to estimate the number of questions they believed they answered correctly.

Participants who read the full article answered the most questions correctly, while those who read the News Feed correctly answered only one question more often than the control group on average. But participants who read the News Feed were more likely to overestimate their knowledge, especially among those motivated to experience strong emotions.

“Social media can inform audiences, even the little article previews that appear in Facebook’s News Feed. However, with this learning comes a false confidence; some individuals (particularly those motivated by their gut reactions) think they learn more the issue than they actually do,” Anspach told PsyPost.

“This overconfidence might translate to increased political participation, but concern remains over whether social media provide enough information for voters to make fully informed choices.”

“In our experiment, we used factual information to test learning. But it’s important to recognize there is a lot of garbage shared via social media. Before we get too excited about social media’s ability to inform audiences, we should also consider its potential to misinform,” Anspach explained.

In a similar study, Anspach and his colleagues found that people are more likely to believe misinformed social media comments over factual information embedded in article previews.

“I suspect future research will consider factors such as age or digital literacy to better understand how audiences react to facts and misinformation differently,” Anspach said.

The study, “A little bit of knowledge: Facebook’s News Feed and self-perceptions of knowledge“, was authored by Nicolas M. Anspach, Jay T. Jennings, and Kevin Arceneaux.

TimberMeadow on March 6th, 2019 at 18:00 UTC »

The actual study and not just some random article:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053168018816189

shadowman-9 on March 6th, 2019 at 17:31 UTC »

There was this interesting, I want to say study but it was probably more like a general breakdown or explainer that cited other studies. Anyways, it outlined a general trend in the writing and reading of articles, showing that not only will most people read just the headline and then walk away with a skewed version of the facts, but that even of the people who do read the article, most will read just the first paragraph, then a few more will read two, then even fewer three, and so on.

So journalists will often deliberately bury contradictory information towards the end. So think of those articles that say, 'Study Shows Surprising and Unrealistic Thing!' then paragraph five will be like, 'oh but three other studies, this expert we consulted, and basic reason indicate that the complete opposite is probably true'. But since nobody reads that far, they never get that info.

Even more interesting, is that a lot of people, even when they get to the contradictory bit at the end, will already be emotionally committed to the first part of the argument, and will be likely to disregard it.

Fun thing to do: read the end first, then re-read the article.

Bonus fun thing: if the article title is a question, then the answer is probably no.

Beo1 on March 6th, 2019 at 17:23 UTC »

What’s especially concerning is that those of us who know the least are also least aware of what they do and don’t know.