Age Variation Among US Adults' Social Media Experiences and Beliefs About Who Is Responsible for Reducing Health-Related Falsehoods: Secondary Analysis of a National Survey.

BACKGROUND

We live in a digital age where social media has become an essential part of people's lives. It is also one of the leading platforms responsible for spreading health-related falsehoods. This study explores who adults of different age groups perceive as responsible for reducing health-related falsehoods on social media.

OBJECTIVE

Despite growing concern over older adults' exposure to false health information on social media, little research examines their beliefs on how to address the problem. This study examines how the age of US adults is associated with their reported experiences with health-related falsehoods on social media and their beliefs about who should be tasked with reducing such falsehoods.

METHODS

This study is a secondary analysis of data from the 2022 Health Information National Trends Survey, a nationally representative survey of US adults (18 years and older). Multivariable logistic regressions estimated how a respondent's age was associated with their self-reported social media use, their difficulty to detect health-related falsehoods on social media, their discussion of health information found on social media with medical providers, and their beliefs regarding who should be responsible for reducing health-related falsehoods on social media. Regression estimates were adjusted for respondents' sociodemographic and health characteristics.

RESULTS

Daily social media use decreased with respondents' age. Respondents aged 50-64 years (b=0.515, P=.01) and 65-74 years (b=0.697, P=.002) were more likely than respondents aged 18-34 years to report they strongly agree that it is difficult for them to detect health-related falsehoods on social media. Compared to younger adults, older adults (65-74 years: b=0.818, P=.002; 75 years and older: b=1.058, P<.001) were more likely to believe medical providers should be responsible for reducing online falsehoods.

CONCLUSIONS

In addition to ongoing efforts by social media platforms to detect and remove falsehoods, the findings suggest medical providers should be tasked with discrediting health-related falsehoods on social media for older adults. However, time during the clinical visit is limited. Future research is needed to discover new approaches and tools tailored to older adults to assist with filtering and discrediting health-related falsehoods on social media.