On Wed, 2020-09-16 at 09:23 +0000, Stephen Loosley quoted an article that said: > Gen Z is eroding the power of misinformation
A good thing. If true. Remaining comments directed at the writer of the article, not you, Stephen. The article is crap from beginning to end. Making expansive claims based on essentially no real evidence. > Why it matters: An innate understanding of social media influence So the writer doesn't know what "innate" means, for a start. > according to a new survey from polling firm College Reaction of 868 > students provided exclusively to Axios. I.e. an extraordinarily small sample size for statements given the breadth of the claims. College Reaction (https://www.collegereaction.com) are *opinion pollsters*. They gather opinion - exclusively *American* opinion." And colour me curmudgeonly, but their website is on Wix. Yes, really. Check out their "team" for three reasons why their ideas on the thoughts of anyone over 25 might not be worth knowing. > Younger people are confident in their ability to detect false > information, but have little faith in older generations. *Almost everybody* is confident in such abilities in themselves. Rather as most people think they are better than average drivers. Confidence is irrelevant. Test them. > * 69% of Gen Z students said it is somewhat or very easy for them > to distinguish real news from misinformation. "They said". How about actually *testing* their claim? > * Half said they think it is "very difficult" for older > generations. "They said". It's testable - test it. > * Studies have found the youngest American adults are far less > likely to share misinformation online than are older Americans. "Studies". Name one. > * "Young people are internet locals," College Reaction founder > Cyrus Beschloss told Axios. "Because they swim through so much > content, they're wildly savvy at spotting bogus content." A completely unproven and unsupported statement followed by a grossly stupid hypothesis. > How it works: As the first generation to grow up with social media > , Gen Z has an innate understanding of how to create and move online > content, which makes them less susceptible to misinformation. An unsubstantiated and I suspect unprovable (and I also suspect - probably wrong) hypothesis *at best*. > * Nearly half (46%) of college students said that they > intentionally like, comment on or share content to train the > algorithms to give them similar information and media. So why wasn't the take-away here that "more than half of college students make no effort to influence what they are fed by social media algorithmic advertisers"? > * Most older generations — even millennials — don't always > understand online influencer culture, the utility of hashtags or how > to intentionally curate their feed. "Most", "don't always"... > * Most misinformation is just "influence and agenda-driven > communications that older generations don’t understand," Jonathon > Morgan, CEO of AI software company Yonder, told Axios. Bold claim. Jonathon Morgan goes on my very, very long list of toss- pots who I will make sure I never pay attention to again. > * Boomers, Gen Xers and even some millennials often don’t know > how this kind of information gets into their feeds. Oh, "often". Very scientific. > “They feel duped,” Morgan said, “And because they feel duped, they > label it as misinformation and disinformation.” Wait on. It *is* misinformation and disinformation. That is the very definition of misinformation and disinformation. And if they feel duped by it, then that have correctly identified it as such, in spite of the dreadful handicap of being over the age of twenty-three. Apparently. The article itself is a perfect example of "influence and agenda-driven communications". > What to watch: Gen Z is using its online savvy to advance its own > values and priorities, said Jason Dorsey, author of Zconomy: How Gen > Z Will Change the Future of Business. Whereas the Chinese, the Russians - or heck, everybody else really - is using their online savvy to do what exactly? Or do they just not have any online savvy? > Gen Z has driven the transformation of Instagram into a social > justice information and education hub. What? :-) A social justice and education hub?!? Have these guys *seen* Instagram? lol... This article is rubbish. It has not a single redeeming feature. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (ka...@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170 Old fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
