Current Events > Gen Zers, millennials worse at spotting fake news than boomers: survey

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-millennials-worse-identifying-fake-news-than-boomers-2023-6

Boomers have always taken the flack for falling for fake news stories, but a survey has found it's younger generations that are more susceptible to online misinformation.

The survey of 1,516 US adults, published Thursday, was conducted by polling organization YouGov in April 2023. It examined how likely people were to be fooled by fake headlines. The survey is based on a framework called The Misinformation Susceptibility Test, developed by University of Cambridge psychologists.

The 2-minute test, now available to the public, required participants to look at 20 headlines and determine which were fake and real. It found that, on average, 65% of those surveyed were able to correctly classify them.

Surprisingly, the survey found that younger respondents were not as adept at spotting the difference between real and fake headlines as their older counterparts who have often been memed for their online naivete.

Only 11% of 18- to 29-year-olds correctly identified more than 16 headlines and 36% got less than 10 headlines correct. Meanwhile, 36% of those aged 65 or older got a high score and only 9% received a lower score.

Gen Zers and millennials' low scores could partly be attributed to the fact that they spend more time online, with less than a quarter of 18- to 44-year-olds spending two or fewer hours of recreational time online each day, compared to 44% of those aged 45 and over.

ok boomer

Literally fake news

Who do these oldies think they're fooling?

Assblasted boomers make fake study lol

Is this part of the test? It is, isn't it?

>businessinsider.com

Highly misleading story. The study only lists headlines and asks if it is real or fake. There is no other context such as where they come from.

It's not a generational issue as much as it's an issue with people who have adopted daily internet usage after the advent of smartphones and social media. I can only speak from my own experiences but I've never come across a single human being who started frequently using the internet after smartphones who has any semblance of media literacy at all.

For younger Zoomers and Gen Alpha, forget about it. Their brains are all but completely rotted at this point.

Did the survey just for kicks. Here are some of the fake headlines:

"Government Officials Have Illegally Manipulated the Weather to Cause Devastating Storms"

"Certain Vaccines Are Loaded with Dangerous Chemicals and Toxins"

"The Government Is Knowingly Spreading Disease Through the Airwaves and Food Supply"

"The Corporate Media Is Controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex: The Major Oil Companies Own the Media and Control Their Agenda"

Being wrong about headlines isn't really the same as falling for fake news. This also does nothing to address the following steps, mostly whether or not people adjust their outlook after being presented with the factual information

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Did the survey just for kicks. Here are some of the fake headlines:

"Government Officials Have Illegally Manipulated the Weather to Cause Devastating Storms"

"Certain Vaccines Are Loaded with Dangerous Chemicals and Toxins"

"The Government Is Knowingly Spreading Disease Through the Airwaves and Food Supply"

"The Corporate Media Is Controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex: The Major Oil Companies Own the Media and Control Their Agenda"

Young folks get fooled by those headlines? Ffs

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/2/AAAAD4AAEncK.jpg

Goddamn. Not bad. Also, the article headlines seem like a litmus test between whether you are susceptible to conspiracy theories or not. A number of them read like conspiracy theories, so I knew that they wouldn't be a real news article.

you guys should go try the test it's actually quite quick and is kinda neat

there's some very obvious fake ones but then at the same time there are (imo) a few kinda borderline ones that could go either way

edit: I also got 19/20, wonder which one I got wrong

With no context and just the headlines, it's kinda difficult to determine what's real and fake for some of them. There's a few that are obvious though. But I'd say overall, younger people were probably more skeptical of believe the headlines without context.

What I didn't see the article mention is whether young people were incorrectly categorizing fake news as real or vice versa. It just mentions they were worse overall at guessing correctly.

IMNOTRAGED posted...

Being wrong about headlines isn't really the same as falling for fake news.

I mean, if all you read is the headline (which is what this generation seems to do) then I can believe you'd be more likely to fall for it.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

"Government Officials Have Illegally Manipulated the Weather to Cause Devastating Storms"

I can't believe people still believe in the HAARP "conspiracy".

Billyionaire posted...

Young folks get fooled by those headlines? Ffs

Those are gimmies, but it also has headlines which is more a test of keeping up with current events such as:

Hyatt Will Remove Small Bottles from Hotel Bathrooms

Attitudes Toward EU Are Largely Positive, Both Within Europe and Outside It

Moroccos King Appoints Committee Chief to Fight Poverty and Inequality

One-in-Three Worldwide Lack Confidence in Non-Governmental Organizations

Hyatt Will Remove Small Bottles from Hotel Bathrooms

Under what criteria am I supposed to know offhand whether that's real or fake?

Furthermore, I could guess that some of the headlines could be "real" in that right-wing outlets will post them.

Media literacy is probably at the lowest point ever and it's not just young people. It's everybody. I would assume some older people would be better at identifying things just based off sheer experience and age.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/5/AAfFpMAAEncX.jpg

Holy shit, I was expecting to miss a couple because I figured there must be some trick that I'm not seeing here.

CyricZ posted...

Under what criteria am I supposed to know offhand whether that's real or fake?

Furthermore, I could guess that some of the headlines could be "real" in that right-wing outlets will post them.

It's basically just "Could this feasibly be true? Probably a real headline." It's not complicated.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

It's basically just "Could this feasibly be true? Probably a real headline." It's not complicated.

This is basically what I did and I got all the real ones correct and a single fake one wrong. No idea which one it was, I wish there was an answer code, but it was probably one of these -

YellowSUV posted...

Hyatt Will Remove Small Bottles from Hotel Bathrooms
Attitudes Toward EU Are Largely Positive, Both Within Europe and Outside It
Moroccos King Appoints Committee Chief to Fight Poverty and Inequality
One-in-Three Worldwide Lack Confidence in Non-Governmental Organizations

since I think I marked them all as true but any of them could easily have gone the other way

UnholyMudcrab posted...

It's basically just "Could this feasibly be true? Probably a real headline." It's not complicated.

Yeah I got 18 because I presumed in some cases that a right-wing outlet would feasibly print it. Full marks on the real ones.

Yeah and boomers are way better at calling real news fake as well

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Did the survey just for kicks. Here are some of the fake headlines:

"Government Officials Have Illegally Manipulated the Weather to Cause Devastating Storms"

"Certain Vaccines Are Loaded with Dangerous Chemicals and Toxins"

"The Government Is Knowingly Spreading Disease Through the Airwaves and Food Supply"

"The Corporate Media Is Controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex: The Major Oil Companies Own the Media and Control Their Agenda"

That last one is unironically true, lol.

FolkenRawr posted...

Is this part of the test? It is, isn't it?

Lol seriously. I find this impossible to believe. Many boomers have enough difficulty just navigating to a news site.

it is astounding how bad gen Z at realizing so much of the media they consume is complete bullshit.

Can't get the quiz to load, but it's weird that no one seems to think one important factor could be that the boomer generation has a ton more life experience than the current youngest generations of adults. Shouldn't these kind of results be a default expected outcome? Haven't young people always been the ones most susceptible to scams, apart from the very elderly, for which boomers aren't quite there yet where they're easy to scam with fake online surveys?

But no, let's make it seem like boomers are better critical thinkers by nature or that the internet has ruined the ability of others to think for themselves.

Y'know that is a good point. It's not like the Internet invented headlines, so even though the zoomers are better at the Internets than the boomers, doesn't mean they're more experienced at reading the news.