News is shared on social media without being read, study finds

Most social media users share links to news content online without reading the article first, according to a new study.

From 2017 to 2020, researchers from US universities analysed over 35 million public Facebook posts with URLs to websites during key moments in the American political cycle. 

They found that 75 per cent of these posted links were shared without a click. For example, a user might repost a news story’s headline, summary, or number of likes without reading the content or verifying the facts. 

“[The results are] quite telling as well as alarming,” the study, which was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, said.

“This could potentially explain why it is so common for misinformation to spread so quickly via social media,” the authors added. 

Why do people share without reading?

Researchers believe people share without clicking because of the “rushed” nature of online interactions where users are more spontaneous with what they share. 

“One reason for [this] … could be the information overload in personal and social media feeds, putting pressure on online users to be expedient and thereby leading them to rely on simple, often superficial, cues,” the study authors wrote. 

What happens then is the social media user feels more knowledgeable than they really are about scientific information and politics, the study continued. 

It found that political people who overtly support one party are more likely to share news content without clicking than people who consider themselves politically neutral. 

The authors, however, acknowledge that this trend could be driven by a small number of hyperactive partisan accounts and communities on Facebook that tend to repost content to amplify its reach. 

The study notably did not include users who might have read the content on another platform and then reshared the same link without clicking. 

The authors recommend, however, that social media companies design general warnings or just-in-time alerts before sharing that let people know the risks of doing so without reading the material.