With the spread of high-speed Internet and portable smart devices, the waypeople access and consume information has drastically changed. However, thispresents many challenges, including information overload, personal dataleakage, and misinformation diffusion. Across the spectrum of risks thatInternet users face nowadays, this work focuses on understanding how youngpeople perceive and deal with false information. Within an experimentalcampaign involving 183 students, we presented six different news items to theparticipants and invited them to browse the Internet to assess the veracity ofthe presented information. Our results suggest that online search is morelikely to lead students to validate true news than to refute false ones. Wefound that students change their opinion about a specific piece of informationmore often than their global idea about a broader topic. Also, our experimentreflected that most participants rely on online sources to obtain informationand access the news, and those getting information from books and Internetbrowsing are the most accurate in assessing the veracity of a news item. Thiswork provides a principled understanding of how young people perceive anddistinguish true and false pieces of information, identifying strengths andweaknesses amidst young subjects and contributing to building tailored digitalinformation literacy strategies for youth.
Online search is more likely to lead students to validate true news than to refute false ones
Loredana Addimando;
2023-01-01
Abstract
With the spread of high-speed Internet and portable smart devices, the waypeople access and consume information has drastically changed. However, thispresents many challenges, including information overload, personal dataleakage, and misinformation diffusion. Across the spectrum of risks thatInternet users face nowadays, this work focuses on understanding how youngpeople perceive and deal with false information. Within an experimentalcampaign involving 183 students, we presented six different news items to theparticipants and invited them to browse the Internet to assess the veracity ofthe presented information. Our results suggest that online search is morelikely to lead students to validate true news than to refute false ones. Wefound that students change their opinion about a specific piece of informationmore often than their global idea about a broader topic. Also, our experimentreflected that most participants rely on online sources to obtain informationand access the news, and those getting information from books and Internetbrowsing are the most accurate in assessing the veracity of a news item. Thiswork provides a principled understanding of how young people perceive anddistinguish true and false pieces of information, identifying strengths andweaknesses amidst young subjects and contributing to building tailored digitalinformation literacy strategies for youth.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
