Who’s Most Susceptible to Fake News?

According to research done at the University of Cambridge, it’s Millennials and Gen Z’ers.

“University of Cambridge psychologists have developed the first validated ‘misinformation susceptibility test’: a quick two-minute quiz that gives a solid indication of how vulnerable a person is to being duped by the kind of fabricated news that floods online spaces,” starts the University’s June 28, 2023 post.

The researchers found “…that younger adults are worse than older adults at identifying false headlines, and that the more time someone spent online recreationally, the less likely they were to be able to tell real news from misinformation.”

The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Behavior Research Methods. The polling results can be accessed at YouGov US website.

Are you gullible? Find out. Take the test yourself at https://yourmist.streamlit.app/, answering 20 true/false questions. The factual sources for the answers came from the likes of the Pew Research Center and Reuters while the false information was generated using ChatGPT version 2.

Dr. Rakoem Maertens, the lead researcher, said the results were “…eye-opening and alarming.” The post goes on to note that, “When it came to age, only 11% of 18- to 29-year-olds got a high score (more than 16 headlines correct), while 36% got a low score (10 headlines or fewer correct). By contrast, 36% of those 65 or older got a high score, while just 9% of older adults got a low score.” And Snapchat users were right only 4% of the time, the worst of the lot, followed by habitués of Truth Social, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Instagram.

The entire post can be accessed here: https://phys.org/news/2023-06-misinformation-susceptibility-online-gen-millennials.html?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=da3b935252-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_29_03_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-da3b935252-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D