The Illusion of Truth: an Eye-tracking Study of Device-specific Perception of Fake News

As mobile technology, particularly smartphones, shapes how individuals consume news, this study examines the impact of device type—PC versus smartphone—on user attention and believability of fake news. An in-lab eye-tracking experiment with 68 participants was conducted, assigning them to either a PC or smartphone condition and exposing them to news posts under different priming conditions (control, intuitive, reflective). Contrary to expectations, results revealed that participants allocated more attention to news posts on smartphones than on PCs. Reflective priming did not significantly decrease the believability of fake news, whereas intuitive priming tended to result in a greater increase in the believability of true news on smartphones compared to PCs. These findings highlight that device type influences cognitive processing in ways that differ from prior assumptions and emphasize the need for misinformation interventions that consider both device-specific and cognitive processing factors to effectively curb misinformation, particularly on mobile devices.