Social media has become a global advertisement for people who can’t seem to get away from their phones. Many of the news social media users encounter are false depictions of real life events or spoof to encourage its prominency on social media by its sharing for discussion.
When concerned with the problem of how we can divert our friends and family on social media from sharing misinformation, we need to have multiple methods of attempts to help signify the importance that encompasses such tactics. In the article, “”Can We Stop the Spread of Misinformation?” by Psychology Today’s writer, Ira E. Hyman, Jr., Ph.D., he states, “Essentially, we need to slow people down. When people slow down, they do a better job of distinguishing fake and true information.” I find this to be a great initial start to help develop a better mindset when discovering new information. We can inform our peers of possibly looking further into what may be seem as suspicious from the clickbait headlines and stories that follow. This may not be enough, though.
In the same article, he also states, “The simple thing is to not require answers from people. Instead, encourage people to withhold answers if they aren’t sure. When you do this, people are more likely to evaluate information.” I think this is the most effective approach presented, since if we share the news with a statement of uncertainty, it will cause the post to get more attention, but will have all readers second guessing whether it’s a true event. From this spread of uncertainty, we can hope that it gets readily disproved, and then shared afterward to stop fellow peers in believing the statement presented.
Every one of our peers will have disagreements with us, and it is our job to inform them that we have researched the topic to find false information related to it, and to encourage them to do the same to see if their conclusion still stays the same. This will allow for a more open approach to not readily disproving their beliefs, but rather allowing them to prove the statements themselves in an attempt to prove its credibility, in which, will bring about the correct status of the situation.
If these tactics seem to tedious for substitution given the conveniency of just sharing a topic on social media, have them do the following, as recommended by Renee Diresta of The Aspen Institute: “make sure the title accurately reflects the content and that the site is reputable.” In this case, we will not be absolutely sure it will reflect the credibility of the story, but we have more reason to trust the source of the information. This approach may encourage more peers to have a strong reliability from their sources, therefore, allowing them to back up their statements of sharing content.
