Sharing news stories with friends and followers on social media can make some people feel overconfident. Those who frequently share such posts often feel like knowledgeable experts, even though they have actually only skimmed over the content they have shared and do not know it exactly.

This is the conclusion of a current study by the University of Texas at Austin , which calls on operators of social media portals to design their offerings in such a way that they encourage users to read more.

Dangerous misjudgment

“Sharing messages on social media sites may lead some people to believe they know more about the subject of a shared piece of content than they actually do.
They are then convinced that they are particularly competent in this matter. But often they have only read the headline of a report. This sharing increases self-confidence. When you put information online yourself, you appear to others like an expert.”

Susan Broniarczyk, professor of marketing at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin

“When people believe they are particularly knowledgeable and knowledgeable about a topic, they are more likely to make riskier decisions.”

Adrian Ward, assistant professor of marketing and co-study author

In practice, this is often a dangerous misjudgment.

“If you perceive yourself to be very competent, you often mistakenly believe that you don't need to read any further because you already know all the information on a topic. This misguided self-confidence is difficult to correct.”

Adrian Ward, assistant professor of marketing and co-study author

Subjective and objective knowledge

As part of their study, Broniarczyk, Ward and their team carried out several investigations. For example, they had 98 students read and share a series of online articles at will, measuring participants' subjective and objective knowledge of the topics covered.

“Reading the articles led to both increased subjective and objective knowledge,”

the scientists summarize the results.

Source: Press release

This might also be of interest: Fake news can contain dangerous, radical messages


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )