According to a new study, most social media users share links to news content online without reading the article.
From 2017 to 2020, researchers from American universities analyzed more than 35 million public Facebook posts with links to websites at key moments in the American political cycle.
They found that 75% of these links were shared without being clicked on. For example, a user may repost the headline, summary, or number of likes of a news story without reading the content or checking the facts.
“[The findings] are quite telling and disturbing at the same time,” says the study, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.
“This could potentially explain why disinformation spreads so quickly on social media,” the authors add.
Why do people spread information without reading it?
The researchers believe that people spread information without clicking on it because of the “hasty” nature of online interactions, when users are more spontaneous in what they share.
“One reason [for this] … may be information overload in personal and social media feeds, which puts pressure on Internet users to rely on simple, often superficial cues,” the study authors write.
As a result, social media users feel more knowledgeable about scientific information and politics than they actually are, the study continues.
It found that politically active people who openly support one party are more likely to share news content without clicking on it than people who consider themselves politically neutral.
The authors, however, acknowledge that this trend may be driven by a small number of hyperactive party accounts and communities on Facebook, which tend to repost content to increase its reach.
The study did not include users who may have read content on another platform and then reposted the same link without clicking on it.
However, the authors recommend that social media companies develop general warnings or timely alerts before sharing material so that people are aware of the risks involved without even reading the material.
