Investigating the Susceptibility to Misinformation Through Behavioral Factors

Public project summary

With the surge of social media usage in the past decade, misinformation has become increasingly prevalent, especially among the youth. In 2017, 31% of kids aged 10 to 18 have reshared at least one false news story on the misconception of its reliability. The spread of fake news is not a new problem nor an easy problem to solve; current fixes, including both AI and human filtering sources, have proven to be temporary and insufficient. In order to introduce a new perspective to current research, we plan to investigate the factors and behaviors that correlate with susceptibility to fake news through a survey. The survey will assess participants on their ability to identify fake news through headlines and collect data on their behaviors concerning general news.