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Like other commenters, this study jives with my experience with older relatives. I mean 'forwards from grandma' has been a thing forever, right? 'Bill Gates wi

Like other commenters, this study jives with my experience with older relatives. I mean 'forwards from grandma' has been a thing forever, right? 'Bill Gates will give a nickel every time this is read' (remember email chains?), 'naked women get shared, but this heroic child won't get a single like', 'Like and Share if you stand with politician X', etc etc. Combine this with the targeted scamming of elderly from various Nigerian princes and jailed grandchildren, and there does seem to be a much greater degree of credulity with our current elderly generation. I think a more interesting study would be to figure out whether it's generational, a function of changing brain physiology as we age, or what.

mu_killnine 8y ago
I wonder if this study includes memes like that or only actual site links external to Facebook. I have similar experiences with older loved ones I'm friend with on Facebook and it's rare they send links. But I think the rampant meme-sharing of misinformation/disinformation is much more prevalent.
- CodeCube 8y ago
  I'm really really loathe to say this ... but in today's climate, "memes are news". I have 100% had the contents of memes thrown at me in a political discussion. I happen to be online a lot, so in many cases, I've seen the meme scroll by and it's easy both to realize what it is (fake propaganda), and easy to debunk ... but to those folks, it's as real as if delivered by Walter Cronkite's lips.
  - wil421 8y ago
    The last election really turned me off of social media. The amount of absolutely false memes and screenshots being shared by both sides was way too much. I recently saw some of the ads and memes being churned out by the Russian propaganda machine. I was not so surprised some of the stuff they created was the same crap people I knew were sharing as truth by intelligent yet older people.
    - iheartpotatoes 8y ago
      Where is the primary source of this, where can I go to see popular memes? I read HN, Reddit and sometimes /., and I guess due to my settings I miss a lot of stuff. I'm not on FB, IG or snap, is that why I'm missing these memes?
      - CodeCube 8y ago
        Mainly facebook, twitter, and some of the seedier areas of reddit (AFAIK, depends on who you follow) ... it's also quite concerning how many of these memes and conspiracies seem to originate in 4chan; a literal hive of scum and villainy (and trolls, foremost). I never would have imagined I'd see the day when I would see prominent personalities and politicians literally tweeting screenshots of 4chan threads
      - JChase2 8y ago
        My personal experience has been it's almost exclusively on FB in the U.S. I've heard it's big on WhatsApp in Brazil which is strange, but believable.
      - wil421 8y ago
        Reddit is a good place and they even have subreddits about Russian botnets posting comments. If I look on Facebook it’s mostly other people sharing them not me and I don’t know where they get them. Some of this stuff is just political garbage in meme style. Basically a pic with block letters.
    - oasd1011 8y ago
      > both sides Sure.
      - CodeCube 8y ago
        In my experience (and this is explicitly anecdotal) ... it seems like liberal memes tend to either satirize a politician's actions or repeat opinion-based editorial info, while conservative memes are more often explicitly fake ... yes, satirical/op-ed memes obviously exist there, but I see more obviously false and easily-debunked conservative memes. For the conservative, those op-ed memes can tend to be interpreted as the oft-quoted "fake news", which is where I'm guessing the "both sides" sentiment comes from. Again, that's just entirely my anecdotal experience.
hannob 8y ago
> I mean 'forwards from grandma' has been a thing forever, right? Let me tell you that grandma' with email is a relatively new phenomena.
- monocasa 8y ago
  Before that, I'd get snail mail with tabloid clippings and handwritten local rumors.
- Quarrelsome 8y ago
  no its not, Grandmas have been online since we all have its just that the barrier has lowered and now there are more.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  I started trading emails with my grandmother some time around 1990. That's not literally forever, but, considering that it's longer than one or two HNers have been alive, it's at least figuratively forever.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  My emails from grandma predate Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Gmail, FWIW.
iamben 8y ago
Agree with you completely. I'll also throw in to the mix - creating news 'back then' required someone to gather it, someone to write it up, a printing press or studio, distribution, whatever - people and effort and time and money. I don't think a lot of the older people I've spoken to realise quite how easy it is to put something on the Internet. Therefore anything that appears, and has the feel of something 'official' must have come from a credible place with the same time and effort involved. If that makes sense?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sillyquiet 8y ago
  Makes complete sense. I don't think folks that pre-date the computer age (with some exceptions) have a intuitive grasp of what the 90s would call cyberspace, and how that differs from meatspace construction.
SkyMarshal 8y ago
I suspect it’s at least partly that the elderly didn’t grow up with Internet, never really understood its culture, didn’t hang out on 4chan, Reddit, etc, and never developed a highly attuned BS/scam detector like more of the younger generations did. Many of these folks don’t even really understand how the Windows UI motif works, they’ve just memorized enough procedures to get stuff done on it. I also suspect that many of those artfully worded and subtly manipulative email forwards of the late 90s and 2000s May have been Russian psyops experimenting with viral information. They were always just a little too clever and effective while trying to look colloquial and organic, and I always suspected it was some PR outfit somewhere cranking them out, but could never divine a reason for the non-political ones. But maybe it was psyops testing and learning techniques in a long game just coming to light now.
- Cakez0r 8y ago
  > I also suspect that many of those artfully worded and subtly manipulative email forwards of the late 90s and 2000s May have been Russian psyops experimenting with viral information. They were always just a little too clever and effective while trying to look colloquial and organic, and I always suspected it was some PR outfit somewhere cranking them out, but could never divine a reason for the non-political ones. But maybe it was psyops testing and learning techniques in a long game just coming to light now. How can you possibly post comment on the elderly not having highly attuned bs detectors and then close with that paragraph? What irony!
  - QuotedForTruth 8y ago
    What part of that sounds like BS? We know they have industrial scale operations to post propaganda now. [1] Obviously this had to start somewhere. I'm pretty sure many intelligence agencies have been researching how information spread on the internet ever since it was created. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll...
    - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
abakker 8y ago
Exactly right, except one of my grandmas only sends me articles from Snopes. It's kind of like reverse fake news. The only online contact I get from her is articles debunking fake news, but, never any actual real news.
- Florin_Andrei 8y ago
  I would say she's fine then.
- newname2018 8y ago
  If it was me receiving these things from my grandma- I would be so happy and proud. Perhaps you could call her today and tell her you love her and thank her for her contribution towards your life
njarboe 8y ago
I think with the internet age and online banking it is much easier to exploit people who are still in control of their finances but starting to enter dementia/Alzheimer's. These people can loose a lot of money to scammers so the scammers spend a lot of time trying to find them. Especially now that you can do it from a computer overseas and will never be prosecuted. The strange misspellings, bad grammar, and obviousness of these Nigerian scams letters are done on purpose so that people responding are much more likely to be in this confused state.
georgeecollins 8y ago
I am old enough to remember when 'forwards from Grandma' was newspaper clippings sent in the mail! Nothing has changed.
- bdamm 8y ago
  At least she had to cut a real newspaper, limiting her forward to one. Lucky you!

mu_killnine 8y ago

I wonder if this study includes memes like that or only actual site links external to Facebook. I have similar experiences with older loved ones I'm friend with on Facebook and it's rare they send links. But I think the rampant meme-sharing of misinformation/disinformation is much more prevalent.

CodeCube 8y ago
I'm really really loathe to say this ... but in today's climate, "memes are news". I have 100% had the contents of memes thrown at me in a political discussion. I happen to be online a lot, so in many cases, I've seen the meme scroll by and it's easy both to realize what it is (fake propaganda), and easy to debunk ... but to those folks, it's as real as if delivered by Walter Cronkite's lips.
- wil421 8y ago
  The last election really turned me off of social media. The amount of absolutely false memes and screenshots being shared by both sides was way too much. I recently saw some of the ads and memes being churned out by the Russian propaganda machine. I was not so surprised some of the stuff they created was the same crap people I knew were sharing as truth by intelligent yet older people.
  - iheartpotatoes 8y ago
    Where is the primary source of this, where can I go to see popular memes? I read HN, Reddit and sometimes /., and I guess due to my settings I miss a lot of stuff. I'm not on FB, IG or snap, is that why I'm missing these memes?
    - CodeCube 8y ago
      Mainly facebook, twitter, and some of the seedier areas of reddit (AFAIK, depends on who you follow) ... it's also quite concerning how many of these memes and conspiracies seem to originate in 4chan; a literal hive of scum and villainy (and trolls, foremost). I never would have imagined I'd see the day when I would see prominent personalities and politicians literally tweeting screenshots of 4chan threads
    - JChase2 8y ago
      My personal experience has been it's almost exclusively on FB in the U.S. I've heard it's big on WhatsApp in Brazil which is strange, but believable.
    - wil421 8y ago
      Reddit is a good place and they even have subreddits about Russian botnets posting comments. If I look on Facebook it’s mostly other people sharing them not me and I don’t know where they get them. Some of this stuff is just political garbage in meme style. Basically a pic with block letters.
  - oasd1011 8y ago
    > both sides Sure.
    - CodeCube 8y ago
      In my experience (and this is explicitly anecdotal) ... it seems like liberal memes tend to either satirize a politician's actions or repeat opinion-based editorial info, while conservative memes are more often explicitly fake ... yes, satirical/op-ed memes obviously exist there, but I see more obviously false and easily-debunked conservative memes. For the conservative, those op-ed memes can tend to be interpreted as the oft-quoted "fake news", which is where I'm guessing the "both sides" sentiment comes from. Again, that's just entirely my anecdotal experience.

hannob 8y ago

> I mean 'forwards from grandma' has been a thing forever, right? Let me tell you that grandma' with email is a relatively new phenomena.

monocasa 8y ago
Before that, I'd get snail mail with tabloid clippings and handwritten local rumors.
Quarrelsome 8y ago
no its not, Grandmas have been online since we all have its just that the barrier has lowered and now there are more.
bunderbunder 8y ago
I started trading emails with my grandmother some time around 1990. That's not literally forever, but, considering that it's longer than one or two HNers have been alive, it's at least figuratively forever.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
My emails from grandma predate Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Gmail, FWIW.

iamben 8y ago

Agree with you completely. I'll also throw in to the mix - creating news 'back then' required someone to gather it, someone to write it up, a printing press or studio, distribution, whatever - people and effort and time and money. I don't think a lot of the older people I've spoken to realise quite how easy it is to put something on the Internet. Therefore anything that appears, and has the feel of something 'official' must have come from a credible place with the same time and effort involved. If that makes sense?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sillyquiet 8y ago
Makes complete sense. I don't think folks that pre-date the computer age (with some exceptions) have a intuitive grasp of what the 90s would call cyberspace, and how that differs from meatspace construction.

SkyMarshal 8y ago

I suspect it’s at least partly that the elderly didn’t grow up with Internet, never really understood its culture, didn’t hang out on 4chan, Reddit, etc, and never developed a highly attuned BS/scam detector like more of the younger generations did. Many of these folks don’t even really understand how the Windows UI motif works, they’ve just memorized enough procedures to get stuff done on it. I also suspect that many of those artfully worded and subtly manipulative email forwards of the late 90s and 2000s May have been Russian psyops experimenting with viral information. They were always just a little too clever and effective while trying to look colloquial and organic, and I always suspected it was some PR outfit somewhere cranking them out, but could never divine a reason for the non-political ones. But maybe it was psyops testing and learning techniques in a long game just coming to light now.

Cakez0r 8y ago
> I also suspect that many of those artfully worded and subtly manipulative email forwards of the late 90s and 2000s May have been Russian psyops experimenting with viral information. They were always just a little too clever and effective while trying to look colloquial and organic, and I always suspected it was some PR outfit somewhere cranking them out, but could never divine a reason for the non-political ones. But maybe it was psyops testing and learning techniques in a long game just coming to light now. How can you possibly post comment on the elderly not having highly attuned bs detectors and then close with that paragraph? What irony!
- QuotedForTruth 8y ago
  What part of that sounds like BS? We know they have industrial scale operations to post propaganda now. [1] Obviously this had to start somewhere. I'm pretty sure many intelligence agencies have been researching how information spread on the internet ever since it was created. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll...
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

abakker 8y ago

Exactly right, except one of my grandmas only sends me articles from Snopes. It's kind of like reverse fake news. The only online contact I get from her is articles debunking fake news, but, never any actual real news.

Florin_Andrei 8y ago
I would say she's fine then.
newname2018 8y ago
If it was me receiving these things from my grandma- I would be so happy and proud. Perhaps you could call her today and tell her you love her and thank her for her contribution towards your life

njarboe 8y ago

I think with the internet age and online banking it is much easier to exploit people who are still in control of their finances but starting to enter dementia/Alzheimer's. These people can loose a lot of money to scammers so the scammers spend a lot of time trying to find them. Especially now that you can do it from a computer overseas and will never be prosecuted. The strange misspellings, bad grammar, and obviousness of these Nigerian scams letters are done on purpose so that people responding are much more likely to be in this confused state.

georgeecollins 8y ago

I am old enough to remember when 'forwards from Grandma' was newspaper clippings sent in the mail! Nothing has changed.

bdamm 8y ago
At least she had to cut a real newspaper, limiting her forward to one. Lucky you!