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Social media has remarkably small impact on Americans’ beliefs:
Social media had only a small influence on how much people believed falsehoods about candidates and issues in the last two presidential elections, a pair of new national studies found.
And Facebook -- which came under fire for spreading misinformation in the 2016 campaign -- actually reduced misperceptions by users in that election compared to those who consumed only other social media.
The results suggest that we need to put the dangers of social media spreading misinformation in perspective, said R. Kelly Garrett, author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
"Given the amount of attention given to the issue, it may seem surprising that social media doesn't have a larger impact on Americans' belief in falsehoods," Garrett said.
Journal Reference:
R. Kelly Garrett. Social media’s contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections. PLOS ONE, 2019; 14 (3): e0213500 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213500
The study lets Facebook off the hook for influencing the 2016 election. Further, the study found, "Results showed that, overall, Republicans beliefs tended to be less accurate than those of Democrats, which made sense because the falsehoods were a prominent part of the Republican campaign strategy, Garrett said."
There you have it. It's science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @09:17PM (3 children)
My (recently deceased) spouse fell into a filter bubble. I had to explain why all the "facts" in the postings were nonsense and how to search for alternate sources of information. It was sad and discouraging.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:34PM (2 children)
Probably around 90% of "normies" use go-ogle and failbook which both are total filter bubbles. It's horrible. It's well researched fact that this "social media" (what an oxymoron) tends to make people's opinions more extreme.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 29 2019, @02:06PM (1 child)
How you're conflating Google (the search engine) with Facebook (the social media site), I have no idea. Using Google to search for things isn't the same as using Facebook. One is a search engine (useful for all kinds of things), the other is a social media site (useful for keeping up with friends, and getting tabloid level news, aka Gossip).
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @02:51PM
If you think google (they call themselves both google and alphabet among other things these days to confuse you) is a search engine, you're clueless. It's mostly a spy company with a side order of advertisement and then a wee little bit of many other things, including web search service...
Now, when you perform a google search, you get your results. When somebody else inputs the same query, they potentially get wildly differing output, i.e. filter bubble. When you read whatever facebook serves you, you're getting whatever they feel like showing you, personally, another filter bubble. Or what did you mean exactly?