Scientists decided to find out who believes fake news most often.
A global analysis was conducted, examining data from 11,500 participants in 31 experiments.
The ages of those observed ranged from 18 to 88 years old. All of them were Americans.
Scientists “punched” these people according to such criteria as education, gender, age, political views, ability to think analytically, etc.
That is, an answer was received to the question: how do the listed factors influence people’s trust in unreliable online information.
The results of the work carried out by scientists dispelled many myths popular in society.
For example, it turned out that the level of education does not affect a person’s ability to distinguish truth from lies.
Moreover, it was found that people with higher education were just as likely to be misinformed as those with less education.
Interestingly, those study participants who positioned themselves as Republicans were more likely to believe in fakes.
Democrats, on the other hand, were more likely to show skepticism and were less trusting of fakes.
The most unexpected results for scientists were those related to age.
It turns out that older people, contrary to one popular myth, are better than younger people at identifying false information.
They, the elderly, often interpret questionable news as unreliable.
Scientists have also found that people most often consider the news they have encountered before to be true.
