Survey Says: Gen X, Millennials, And Gen Z Are More Confident In Identifying False Information On The Internet

Millennials and Gen Z are more likely to identify false information (photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - According to a survey conducted by Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise at the Poynter Institute and his partner YouGov on digital media literacy to thousands of middle and high school students, they found the majority of them view false information every week.

"The survey found that 62 percent of respondents think they see false or misleading information at least weekly," the Google keyword team wrote on its blog.

In a recent @Poynter & @YouGov study, 62% of global respondents said they see false or misleading info on a weekly basis. 🧐

See how different generations verify info and learn more about information literacy with @GoogleNews and Search → https://t.co/4tBwnDfAql pic.twitter.com/IvGS6mZqzy

— Google (@Google) August 11, 2022

The survey was conducted on 8.500 respondents of various ages in the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, Nigeria, India and Japan. The goal is to learn more about how people across generations verify information and decide what to trust and share online.

As a result, people realized that this was a serious problem. Supposedly, 50 percent of all Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z respondents (ages 18 - 57 years) said they were worried that their family would be exposed to this false information.

According to the survey results, Alex revealed that Gen Z are twice as likely to use search engines to verify information than the Silent Generation (age > 68) and Baby Boomers (Generation after the mute generation).

Furthermore, Gen Z are also more likely to use advanced search techniques, such as reverse image search, or engage in lateral reading.

The conclusion is, that Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X feel slightly more confident in identifying false or misleading information than boomers and Silent Generation.