Study: Sharing Social Media Posts Before Clicking on Their Content May Spread Misinformation

A new study has found that sharing posts on Facebook without clicking on the content is a widely prevalent phenomenon. It may explain why misinformation can spread rapidly via social media.

The findings by Jinping Wang, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Advertising assistant professor, and colleagues S. Shyam Sundar, Eugene Cho Snyder, Mengqi Liao, Junjun Yin and Guangqing Chi, are featured in “Sharing Without Clicking on News in Social Media” published in Nature Human Behaviour on Nov. 19, 2024.

The authors studied how many individuals share links on social media without first reading the linked information. Their findings suggest that the virality of political content on social media (including misinformation) is driven by superficial processing of headlines and blurbs rather than systematic processing of core content.

For more, read a summary of the research on our Research and Insights page.

Posted: January 16, 2025
Category: College News
Tagged as: Advertising, Jinping Wang, Misinformation, Social Media