We’ve probably all had this experience: You’re scrolling through social media and see something a bit outrageous. Maybe it’s a news headline that confirms your worst suspicions. You know your like-minded friends would agree with it. So, you share it.   

But … was it true?   

People who study misinformation say it’s easy to fall for and spread falsehoods. And once we share them, they have a way of multiplying online and becoming accepted through repetition.     

But what makes us believe things that aren’t true?

To some degree, it’s human nature, said Panayiota Kendeou, a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies disinformation.

“We just accept things at face value. We don’t go deep,” she said. “We have limited attentional resources, so we kind of choose where to focus, where to spend more time and less time.”

The way we access information plays a role, too, she said. 

“We see the same information, especially if it’s incorrect, being repeated again, and again. That makes us fall for it easily,” she said. “We have this sense of illusion that something is true, because we saw it too many times. We heard it too many times.”

Confirmation bias bolsters disinformation, said Sharon McMahon, who is a former high school government teacher and who uses social media to combat falsehoods.

“We really like the way it makes us feel when we come across information that supports what we already believe about another group or supports what we already believe about ourselves,” she said.

During the 2024 election year, disinformation became a routine part of the political discourse. Here are five tips for spotting and debunking disinformation: 

1) Understand the role of emotions

If information you see online elicits strong emotions, tread carefully, said Kendeou. “Emotional language in the information that we share grabs attention, and negative emotions narrow our attention,” she said. “You’re more likely to share information when you’re emotionally charged, and especially when the emotion is a negative one.”

2) Double down on correct information

Kendeou’s research shows that the practice of debunking — or sharing and emphasizing accurate information — can be successful in countering disinformation you see on social media.

3) Consider the messenger

Debunking works best when it’s delivered by a trusted source. Kendeou said that it can be a media source, an institution or an individual. “That makes a huge difference,” she said.

4) Verify, verify, verify

It takes effort to verify information circulating online, said McMahon. If you have the time, great. “But my best advice is if you do not have the time or resources to verify information, don’t reshare it,” she said.

5) Have some humility

We’re all wrong sometimes. We’ve probably all shared inaccurate information, too. “Intellectual humility is important. I think knowing what we don’t know, acknowledging what we don’t know, and being open to change our minds,” is important, said Kendeou. 

To learn more about misinformation and hear what our listeners had to say about it, use the audio player above to listen to MPR News Host Angela Davis talking with Kendeou and McMahon.

Their conversation is part of the MPR News Talking Sense series, online, on the air and in person, aiming to help us better understand why political conversations are so polarized. Find more tools for having hard conversations on the Talking Sense app. 

Guests:  

• Panayiota Kendeou is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development. Her recent work focuses on identifying, researching and implementing strategies that reduce the impact of misinformation.    

• Sharon McMahon is a former high school government teacher in Duluth who uses social media to combat misinformation. Her Instagram account @SharonSaysSo has grown to 1.1 million followers.  

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