Mis- and distrust cues: investigating how people determine who and what to trust online

Abstract

The sheer volume of news and information people see online, especially on social media, can be overwhelming and make it difficult – or impossible – for people to fact-check the content they come across on a daily basis. In light of this, our study explored the everyday methods people use to decide who and what to trust online. Using a 1-week digital diary study with 55 adult participants living in Australia, we learnt that mis- and distrust cues provide people with a coping mechanism to deal with information overload. However, when we fact-checked content participants labelled as untrustworthy, 39% of these examples were factually correct. This suggests that people's hypervigilance in using mis- and distrust cues results in them frequently mis-categorising content. We draw on these findings to make recommendations relevant to news publishers and media literacy practitioners.