Psychosocial processes and human desire: an inconvenient truth about online misinformation

AbstractMuch has been written about the potential civic ramifications of online misinformation, and scholars have identified many useful strategies for helping students discern fact from fiction on social media. However, those strategies make an assumption, which is that consumers of digital media have a desire to identify and share accurate information. In this article, I argue that media literacy efforts should also require students to be retrospective and grapple with their own motivations and biases that may make them more susceptible to believing inaccurate or misleading information. Drawing on theories from political psychology, namely motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, as well as psychosocial research that explains the role of affect on individuals’ decision-making, I identify implications for K-12 media literacy education.Keywords: Media literacysocial mediamotivated reasoningconfirmation biasaffectpsychosocial Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For the K-12 schools, SHEG studied students from 16 districts in 14 states. They prioritized districts with racial and ethnic diversity, and the districts varied in terms of enrollment, percentage of students receiving specialized education services, and proportion of schools receiving Title 1 funds (Breakstone et al., Citation2021).2 Another problem with educating students on social media norms is that they are always changing. For example, the blue check mark no longer has the same authority it once did. After taking control of X, Musk allowed anyone to purchase a blue check mark for a monthly fee, and recent reports indicate that the Meta products (Facebook and Instagram) are going to follow suit (Espada, Citation2023).3 Elon Musk has since changed the name of the app from Twitter to X. However, given that this fake post occurred when the name was still Twitter, I am using that name and referring to the post as a tweet.4 The experiment was part of the Youth Participatory Politics Survey, which is a nationally representative survey of Americans aged 15 to 27.5 I used the search feature of the websites for British Journal of Educational Technology, Computers and Education, Educational Technology and Society, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Journal of Media Literacy, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, and TechTrends.6 As an example, I document one of my own bouts with directional motivation/confirmation bias elsewhere (Journell, Citation2021).7 Determining what is considered an “active user” of social media is somewhat subjective; however, the Pew Research Center (Citation2021) has found that 70% of Facebook users and 60% of Instagram and Snapchat users check their accounts daily. Yet, the number of people who produce content is lower; for example, Pew also found that 25% of the most active X users produced 97% of all posts (McClain, 2021).8 Social media outlets use different terminologies, and some, namely Facebook, have options in which one can remain friends with someone but unfollow or block their posts from being seen. For readability, I use the term “unfollow” from this point on to describe unfriending users, blocking or hiding posts, or any other action taken with the intent to prevent one from seeing unwanted content on their social media accounts.9 Interestingly, unfollowing people due to their politics appears to be more prevalent in the United States than in other democratic nations. In studies conducted in Hong Kong (Zhu et al., Citation2017; Zhu & Skoric, Citation2022) and Israel (John & Dvir-Gvirsman, Citation2015) during periods of political conflict in those respective nations, the percentage reporting unfollowing people due to politics only ranged between 11% to 15%. This discrepancy may be illustrative of the high degree of political polarization found in the United States.10 Research has shown that the likelihood of an American being killed by a refugee-linked terrorist attack is approximately one in 3.6 billion (Beauchamp, Citation2017).11 Of course, it is certainly possible that even when one finds a meme to be false or abhorrent, they may still share it, albeit in an attempt to highlight the inaccuracy, which still results in the meme being shared.Additional informationNotes on contributorsWayne JournellWayne Journell is Professor of social studies education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His research focuses on the teaching of politics and controversial issues in K-12 education.