Clickbait quagmire
Americans today are bearing the brunt of a (mis)information overload.
They are turning to the Internet, social media, and increasingly, artificial intelligence to get details on just about everything. Googling has become a reflex action, and almost a pastime.
Have a medical complaint and want to self-diagnosis it? Need financial advice on the cheap? Trying to rewire your house, fix a broken furnace, save your marriage, or train a pandemic puppy?
Without a doubt, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of websites, blogs, and videos that will provide answers or advice.
Often, people assume they, too, can become experts by relying on Google, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and social media postings to obtain limited, incomplete — or downright inaccurate — information on a topic.
Whether these consumers are savvy enough to separate clickbait from credible content is uncertain.
And that, says U-M Psychology Professor David Dunning, is a huge problem.
“These days people have lots of ideas about things, such as the safety of routine vaccines, how to handle their finances, and the impact of tariffs, but they have not had classes in bioscience, personal finance, or global economics,” says Dunning. He is the Mary Ann and Charles R. Walgreen, Jr., Professor of the Study of Human Understanding
“Whatever the topic is, there are people who are well-informed, people who are uninformed, and people who are misinformed,” he says. “This mismatch between what you think you know and what you actually know is always relevant.”
Read the full article on Michigan Today.
