Senior citizens share fake news the most

People aged 65 and above are more likely to share fake news in the US according to the findings of a latest study conducted by Princeton and New York University.

The study has further that regardless of political inclination, the number has increased since 2016. It further reads that the demographic characteristics have no consistent effect on the sharing of fake news and articles.



“The vast majority of Facebook users in our data did not share any articles from fake news domains in 2016 at all. No other demographic characteristic seems to have a consistent effect on sharing fake news, making our age finding that much more notable,” states the findings.

Researchers surveyed a sample of 3500 US adults who were matched with their Facebook profiles from where it was cross-checked to see if they have shared any fake news articles.



The findings of this study back up the initial report by one of the same researchers, Andrew Guess of Princeton Univesity. The initial study stated that out of the 2525 Americans, people over 60 were more likely to share fake news.

The study though only looked at Facebook pages and Messenger whereas Fake news also spreads through other social media apps; such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

This article originally appeared on Mashable.