Social media and the spread of misinformation and anxiety

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Social media and the spread of misinformation and anxiety
Introduction
The advent of social media as an alternative informationplatform marked a turning point in the history of media reporting. It is a stark contrast from the hitherto tightly controlled mainstream media platforms. This departure has had both merits and demerits in equal measure. While it’s true that information content was controlled by media companiesthat determined the reporting language and style; it is also evident that sometimes, the truth would be intentionally filtered(Del Vicario et al., 2016). Subsequently, notwithstanding the authenticity and credibility of the information sources, some content would be filteredif deemed to conflict with the interests of the media owners. This starkly contrasts with the social media reporting given that, unlike in the mass media era where reporting was strictly done by trained journalists working under a certain media company, social media platforms now permit all and sundry to publish information on anything without necessarily divulging the source of information.Social media information lackscredibility since the information published is simply a reflection of individual thoughts and opinions, and is often devoid of facts. Unlike in the old era of news reporting where trained journalists would submit their stories to media houses for authentication, editing and publishing, social media provides freedom of publishing unsubstantiated information(Chen, Sin, Theng& Lee, 2015). This phenomenon has triggered the spread of misinformation and anxiety. The popularity and widespread use of social media platforms as a source of information has the potential of masking the true facts and information. The great danger of misinformation lies in the fact that consumers are not trained on how to differentiate facts from opinions andauthoritative from unauthoritativesources.Subsequently, they cannot differentiate between propaganda, heresy and personal views from factual information.
Social Media and Misinformation
The current unprecedented growth in the use of social media has been occasioned by a decline in the cost of smart phones and internet bandwidth. The high mobile phone penetration has enabled millions of people in remote places to gain access to the internet. Although the proliferation of smart phones and decline in bandwidth cost has enabled many people gain access to information, this has substantially reduced content quality sinceanyone regardless of their educational level can generate information(Lewandowsky, Ecker& Cook, 2017).Uneducated people are not justconsumers but publishers of information as well. The lack of controls on social media can largely be blamed for the spread of misinformation. In fact, the freedom that social media provides is twofold since individuals not only have the freedom to publish, but also consumer anything. One of the merits of social media over the mainstream media is the lack of information filtering at the source. Social media users now have access to uncensored and unfiltered information due to lack of controls. Still, gainingunmetered access to unc...