A new study led by Comenius University (see HERE ) shows that teenagers have difficulty distinguishing between false and true health information. Only 48 percent of participants trust accurate health information more than fake information. Meanwhile, 41 percent see false and true, neutral information as equally trustworthy. Eleven percent estimate that true, neutral information is less reliable than false information.
Media literacy is important
The respondents also do not perceive poor processing of information as a sign of low trustworthiness. Overall, however, 71 percent of young people worldwide use the Internet. Researchers showed 300 secondary school students between the ages of 16 and 19 seven short messages about the health benefits of different types of fruits and vegetables. The messages were false information, true information and true information with editorial elements such as superlatives, sensational titles, grammatical errors, competency incentives and bold font.
Participants were asked to rate the credibility of these messages. They were clearly able to distinguish false health information from information that was true or slightly edited. According to Masaryk, trusting messages requires identifying false and true content. When presented with health messages that seemed plausible and reasonable, teens could not distinguish between true neutral information and health information with editorial elements.
Side effect of the pandemic
Teens do not appear to make trustworthiness decisions based on signs of processing. The only type of health information that was significantly less trusted than real information was messages with sensational titles. According to research director Radomír Masaryk, there has been an explosion of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most research on the credibility of messages has so far focused on adults. Details were published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Article image: Pexels
Source: PT
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