Here is one more reason why you have to log out. A new study found that Facebook (and similar social media sites) is making you dumber.
If you've been on Facebook long enough, you've probably encountered a post that promises Mark Zuckerberg to donate $1 to a sick child or an impoverished family from a distant third world for every "Like" or "Comment." These scams, spams, and false information are being shared like wildfire, ending up in your Newsfeed and in most cases, discussed during family reunions or office parties.
There is a reason why such drivel proliferates on Facebook and other similar social media sites. A study centering on Facebook and its battalion of users from all over the world has found that the website's over one billion monthly active users (according to Facebook) has developed a thinking called "confirmation bias."
Bloomberg View explained that confirmation bias means that people go online not to fact-check information or an idea, but to confirm their beliefs. People who think this way disregard any proof that contradicts an idea they have already chosen to elect as the universal truth.
The researchers observed the behavior of Facebook users from 2010 to 2014. The paper covered all the facets of how false information sparks and spreads on the platform.The researchers monitored and studied a total of 69 pages - ranging from conspiracy theories made by false science news pages to trolls who intentionally create commotion by spreading false information - in the span of five years.
Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that people tend to share information that adheres to their already established opinions and beliefs regardless of how baseless it might be. These kinds of misinformation are rapidly circulated within a community made up of like-minded people.
Facebook users find the information they believe in to be most interesting and, therefore, worthy to be shared online. Michela Del Vicario from Laboratory of Computational Social Science, the lead researcher of the study, wrote: "users mostly tend to select and share content according to a specific narrative and to ignore the rest."
If you want to read further into the topic, you can find a PDF of the study here.
