While most Americans rarely encounter fake health news, the small amount of low-credibility medical information on the web is consumed almost entirely by older adults, according to new research.
A study by communication researchers at the University of Utah, published in Nature Aging, tracked the web-surfing habits of more than 1,000 US adults for four weeks. The findings illuminate a stark generational divide: traffic to dubious health websites is heavily concentrated among older populations, particularly those who lean right politically.
Lead author Ben Lyons, an associate professor in the Department of Communication, warned that this pattern suggests the population most vulnerable to health issues is also the most likely to be exposed to harmful information online.
Rare but concentrated
Despite the perception that the internet is awash in medical myths, the study offers a silver lining: most people do not see it.
“It’s sort of good news, though. Overall, the levels are pretty low,” said Lyons. “Not all older adults are like this, but the outliers are concentrated among older adults.”
During the study, participants visited approximately 9 million URLs. Of the 1,055 health-related domains, only 6.8 per cent contained low-credibility information. Furthermore, only 13 per cent of participants visited even one such site during the month-long period.
However, the exposure was highly concentrated. The top 10 per cent of users accounted for more than three-quarters of all visits to low-credibility health sites, with older adults making up the bulk of this group.
The echo chamber effect
Perhaps the most surprising finding was how users arrived at these websites. Contrary to popular belief, older adults were not stumbling upon false health claims via Google searches or Facebook feeds.
“We’re also not seeing people being referred through partisan news media, even though that is a correlate,” Lyons explained.
Instead, the behaviour appeared to be insular. Users who visited low-credibility health sites often navigated to them directly or clicked through from other low-credibility domains.
“They’re visiting these because they visit other low-credibility sites… They’re going to them directly,” Lyons said.
Politics and health
The researchers also noted a link between political leaning and health misinformation. While older adults are known to engage more with political misinformation, the motivation for sharing health myths appears different.
“The age effect is way bigger for politics,” Lyons noted. “You don’t get a feeling of team identity from sharing health misinformation like you would for information that puts down your political opponents.”
The study suggests that interventions to improve digital literacy and online health environments should prioritise seniors, who face a unique combination of greater health burdens and greater exposure to misinformation.
