Research project
Tracking Adolescents' Susceptibility to Misinformation in the Digital Age
This project investigates which aspects of social media content adolescents attend to and how these relate to their credibility judgments, aiming to systematically understand their susceptibility to misinformation and inform effective educational programs that foster youth’s resilience to misinformation.
- Duration
- 2025 - 2027
- Contact
- Jiemiao Chen
- Funding
-
AXA Research Fund
Scientific Background
With the rise of social media, misinformation now spreads rather widely and rapidly. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to misinformation partly due to their high exposure to social media and underdeveloped critical thinking skills. Moreover, much misinformation relies on emotional appeal, and adolescents are arguably more susceptible to this than adults.
The consequences of misinformation are severe for adolescents, such as increased risky behaviors instigated social media trends and rising extremism and polarisation among youth. Despite this, current research on adolescents' social media use focuses largely on screen time, neglecting critical aspects such as attention allocation and content judgment. This project aims to bridge this gap by investigating adolescents' attention allocation on social media and and how it relates to their misinformation susceptibility.
Research Objectives
The project aims to address the knowledge gap regarding adolescents' susceptibility to misinformation in three specific aims:
- Identify which aspects of social media content adolescents attend to and how this relates to perceived credibility.
- Examine how this process is affected by peer presence.
- Characterise developmental differences between adolescents and adults in aims 1 and 2.
These objectives will provide insights into adolescents' unique vulnerabilities and inform educational programs tailored to their needs.
Study Design and Methods
Study Design
The project consists of two studies. Study 1 combines video viewing with eye-tracking to examine adolescents’ attention allocation to TikTok feeds. Building on Study 1, Study 2 recruits friend dyads to investigate how the presence of a peer influences what adolescents attend to and their judgements.
Two age groups: adolescents (15-17 years) and young adults (20-25 years) will be recruited.
Methods
- Eye-Tracking Technology: eye-tracking is used to record participants’ eye movements while watching social media feeds. Furthermore, a dual mobile eye-tracking paradigm will be developed to simultaneously track the eye movements of both friends during the task.
- Self-reports: surveys and self-rating scales.