Older Adults’ Response Strategies to Misinformation on Social Media

Social media offer the opportunity for much public discourse, but also come with the potential to spread misinformation far and wide. This study investigates how older adults respond to misinformation on social media and how their responses vary by sociodemographic factors and digital skills. Based on survey data collected in 2023 from 2000 adults ages 60+, we find that many users take a multifaceted approach to assessing false or misleading information on social media. The most common strategies are reading the comments for validation and checking the source. The prevalence of such responses to misinformation highlights older adults’ active participation in information verification on social media. Findings also suggest that those who use the internet less frequently and those with lower social media skills are less likely to use such strategies suggesting that digital inequality is at play when it comes to responding to misinformation.