Age variation among U.S adults in social media experiences and beliefs about who is responsible for reducing health-related falsehoods (Preprint)

Abstract

What is already known on this topic: Adults aged 65 and older are less likely to identify health related falsehood on social media than their younger counterparts. While policies and interventions exist to reduce the presence and impact of falsehoods, few consider the perspectives of those aged 65 and older. What this study adds: We found adults 65 and older were more likely than their younger counterparts to believe medical providers should be responsible for reducing falsehoods. How this study might affect research, practice or policy: Medical providers should consider discussing the health-related information that their patients who are 65 and older find on social media, but time during the clinic visit may be limited. Additional interventions should be designed and evaluated to aid in identifying and discrediting falsehoods, such as mobile apps.

Despite growing concern over older adult’s exposure to false health information on social media, little research examines their beliefs over how to address the problem. The current study examines how the age of U.S. adults is associated with their reported experiences with health-related falsehoods on social media and their beliefs about who should be tasked with reducing such falsehoods.

A secondary analysis of the 2022 HINTS data, a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (18 and older). Multivariable logistic regressions estimated how respondents’ age is associated with their self-reported social media usage, difficulty to detect health-related falsehoods on social media, discussion of health information found on social media with medical providers, and their beliefs regarding who should reduce health-related falsehoods on social media. Regression estimates were adjusted for respondents’ sociodemographic and health characteristics.

Daily social media use decreased with respondents’ age. Respondents aged 50-64 and 65-74 were more likely than respondents aged 18-34, 35-49, and 75+ to self-report they “strongly agree” it is difficult for them to detect health-related falsehoods on social media. Compared to younger adults, older adults (65 and older) were more likely to believe medical providers should be responsible for reducing online falsehoods.

In addition to ongoing efforts by social media platforms to detect and remove falsehoods, the findings suggest medical providers should be tasked with discrediting health-related falsehoods on social media for older adults. However, time during the clinical visit is limited. Future research is needed to discover new approaches and tools tailored to older adults to assist with filtering and discrediting health-related falsehoods on social media.