Mistrust does not reduce Facebook usage! Intensive users believe the platform and often overestimate the ability to recognize fake news.
Facebook users don’t use the social media platform any less if they don’t trust it. Even if you see Facebook as a distributor of fake news, this does not restrict its use.
Only greater trust has an impact and increases the time you spend with the platform. But that trust is often misplaced, according to a study by North Carolina State University.
“Trust brings intensive users”
The researchers interviewed 661 US social media users for the study. They examined how strongly people believe news on Facebook and how well they say they can see through misinformation on the Internet. It turned out that distrust of the platform has no effect. Facebook is more trustworthy for those who see themselves as good debunkers of fake news.
„The better people can differentiate between misinformation and accurate news in their own imagination, the more likely they are to trust Facebook. And the more they trust Facebook, the more likely they are to be intensive users. Unfortunately, their belief does not mean that they are actually better at recognizing fake news than other people“, Explains study leader Yang Cheng.
Responsibility at Facebook
It has also been shown that the more respondents think about the consequences of fake news, the less they trust Facebok. If they think that the social media platform is responsible for reducing manipulative content, then they are also less gullible. According to Cheng, Facebook often cannot prevent enthusiastic users from believing fake news because they overestimate themselves and fail to realize that they are being misled.
Swell:
Studie North Carolina State University
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Article image: Shutterstock.com / By pathdoc
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