Researchers shockingly discover we use the net to reinforce beliefs
Thank you Captain Obvious. Anyone else tired of researchers spending money just so that they can prove something we already knew? This time they’ve spent money just to prove that people spend more time reading up on things that support their point of view on the internet than things that don’t support them. They monitored 156 college students to conduct this study. They analyzed what subjects they read up on, including things like gun control and abortion. They then tracked the amount of time the students spent reading different viewpoints.
“As a result, she found that participants spent 36 percent more time reading articles that agreed with their point of view. They had a 58 percent chance of choosing articles that supported their views, as opposed to a 43 percent chance of choosing an article that challenged their view.” That’s not exactly news that’s going to shock anyone and frankly makes you question the sanity of the researchers. After all, when is a study too obvious to conduct? The only interesting thing they actually discovered is that liberals were even less likely to check out articles supporting the opposing view. Whereas the conservatives would be slightly more open minded and spend a little more time reading up on the other side of the story.
Source: Switched
“Whereas the conservatives would be slightly more open minded and spend a little more time reading up on the other side of the story.”
I think someone’s bias is showing.
I think the real issue here is why are all these silly, pretend “studies” being lauded as if they are real research? These kinds of studies are so college students can learn to do studies. They are not actually representative of the real world and should only say, “Our research found, among the very limited sample, that people at our university, when they knew they were being watched, did X, Y, and Z.”