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Social media users probably won’t read beyond this headline, researchers say (www.psu.edu)

submitted 1 day ago by Joker@sh.itjust.works to c/science@lemmy.world

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A new study of 35 million news links circulated on Facebook reports that more than 75% of the time they were shared without the link being clicked upon and read

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[-] Kintarian@lemmy.world 64 points 1 day ago

I don't read 90% of the articles because they're mostly crap.

[-] TherapyGary 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This article is about sharing links without having read the content, not just scrolling past or commenting without reading first

Edit: a more accurate headline would be

Facebook users probably won't read beyond this headline before sharing it, researchers say

[-] Kintarian@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

At first the author states:

The findings, which the researchers said suggest that social media users tend to merely read headlines and blurbs rather than fully engage with core content, appeared today (Nov. 19) in Nature Human Behavior. While the data were limited to Facebook, the researchers said the findings could likely map to other social media platforms and help explain why misinformation can spread so quickly online.

This implies all social media users. Later it mentions sharing information.

If I cared , I would read the paper. I think the author didn't do a very good job from headline on.

[-] TherapyGary 5 points 21 hours ago

I know they think it might generalize to other platforms, but there's little evidence to say so, and I doubt the percentage is nearly as bad on other platforms, especially Lemmy (which is the only social media I use, so the only thing relevant to me and many others here)

There's likely also a high percentage of people who form opinions about and comment on headlines without reading the content, but that's not what this paper measured