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Anecdotal evidence: I remember how my 65 years old dad changed from a large-minded, world-traveling retired professor to an avid consumer of fake news in the sp

Anecdotal evidence: I remember how my 65 years old dad changed from a large-minded, world-traveling retired professor to an avid consumer of fake news in the span of fewer than two years. Yes, it was a shock, but most of all I am mortified that this could happen to me as well when I get to his age.

cheez 8y ago
I used to read the national enquirer (UFOs, Bigfoot!) religiously as a kid. I suspect there is something that appeals to people at certain stages in life. Most likely, as you get older/younger you desire stimulation. In mid-life, you're probably over-stimulated.
- pesmhey 8y ago
  Hey friend, let me in on some of that get-younger juice! Just poking fun.
- aswanson 8y ago
  Yup. In middle school a buddy of mine and I used to read all that stuff. Lots of fun.
- hkt 8y ago
  Fairy tales!
dev_dull 8y ago
Stay unplugged from social media and especially mainstream media and you’ll be just fine.
- choochooboogalu 8y ago
  Gather all information from primary sources? Sarcasm aside, I do agree that journals and other longer period periodicals are more reliable.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    In the age of the internet, that doesn't have to be as sarcastic as you think it might.
    - asdff 8y ago
      You still aren't going to be emailing eyewitnesses for their take.
- dandare 8y ago
  You mean "Don't trust mainstream media, watch this shocking video instead"?
  - dahfizz 8y ago
    That's clearly not what OP said.
  - trgn 8y ago
    Maybe rather as in, stay away from mainstream media because the hosts will literally talk to you as if you were a toddler, yell at you really, constantly flash colorful thingies in your face, blast stupid loud jingles, and drag out idiotic news stories over days as if they were soap operas. I cringe when I visit my parents and CNN is on in the middle of the day. I'm convinced that that loud, obnoxious infotainment contributes to their degraded mental faculties.
    - Brakenshire 8y ago
      That’s more 24 hour news than the mainstream media.
      - theWheez 8y ago
        Could you expand on what you mean by this separation?
        Brakenshire 8y ago
        I think the things you mention are just more characteristic of rolling news in particular than they are of the media in general, which is incredibly varied in form, tone and reliability. Flashy graphics, soap opera style narratives, shouting for drama etc are all dictated by the economic forces which underpin rolling news, in particular having to generate an enormous amount of material as cheaply as possible, and in effect a competition to get viewers addicted. There is fantastic news and analysis elsewhere, a large part of it in mainstream publications.
      - 8y ago
- SkyMarshal 8y ago
  Data journalism and long-form deep investigative journalism is fine, or least less bad. With the caveat that data journalism that illustrates past or current events is fine, but that which tries to draw correlations or make predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. Short form journalism I ignore, or seek the primary source (like a president’s speech or similar).
  - ergothus 8y ago
    >long-form deep investigative journalism I like the distinction you put here, as I've found most "long form" journalism to be focused on superficial details and to try to emphasize innuendo and rumor into emotional plays rather than focusing on facts. As soon as I hit a physical description of one of the people involved that covers more than a sentence (when the article isn't covering a topic involving a physical description), I know the author isn't focused on the parts I care about. Which is a shame, as there is plenty of investigative journalism that benefits from deeper coverage. Just a lot fewer people doing it. (likely as a consequence of fewer people caring enough to make it financially viable, to properly place blame, but from my end I want the material, not to place blame)
    - 8ytecoder 8y ago
      News == current happenings. It really never helps me with seeing the bigger picture. Unless I'm already aware of the big picture in which case News augments my understanding. Magazines == Get the big picture on a broad range of topics. Books == Get the full picture on specific topics. Looking at things this way I have come to realize that most news I used to read doesn't add any empirical value to me. Sure I can show off I know this and that and that happened and how stupid is that and laugh at it. But that's about it. News (cable news) is literally entertainment IMHO.
      - im3w1l 8y ago
        > Books == Get the full picture on specific topics. No. You'll get a well informed point of view but it's still just a single persons point of view.
- asdff 8y ago
  Are people even plugged into mainstream media, barring talking heads on fox news, cnn, or youtube? Even on reddit, which purpotes to be more informative than a youtube comment section, it is plainly obvious the bulk of the commenters don't read the article beyond the linked headline. There is nothing sinister about repudable publications and their written articles.
- Florin_Andrei 8y ago
  Yes, completely isolate yourself. It'll do you good. /s
  - 50656E6973 8y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio
mcculley 8y ago
You are not alone. I have witnessed similar changes in people older than me. I have also been wondering how to prevent that.
- bonestamp2 8y ago
  It's not surprising. That generation grew up as the conventions in media itself were being developed. Those are my parents and they have a much different view and trust in media than my generation, and my kids have even less trust in media. My dad flipped. My mom hasn't (yet) but I think that's because she's overly skeptical of everything. The part I fear most is that healthy dose of skepticism that most people used to have is being turned against those people. If you're not with us, you're against us. Nope, that's a false dichotomy. My father doesn't know what a false dichotomy is. That wasn't something he was taught in grade school or business school. That is something I was taught. I think the best thing we can do is not argue with the older generation about the subject matter itself, but simply arm them with the tools to find flawed arguments in the subject matter. If you're reading this, and you're not familiar with the concept of logical fallacies, that's a good place to start because fake news is almost always built on logical fallacies that are easy to disassemble once you can spot them: https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/ https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-kno... Once everyone has the tools to debate effectively, then we can have civilized discussions about the actual subject matter itself.
  - JKCalhoun 8y ago
    > The part I fear most is that healthy dose of skepticism that most people used to have is being turned against those people. That is my fear as well. "Believe nothing," would be the wrong takeaway from all this, but I'm afraid a cynical population of our youth might very well be following that course. Be skeptical of skepticism too I tell my daughters.
    - michaelchisari 8y ago
      The New Sincerity and Meta-Modernist trends offer a refuge of sorts. The naiveté of modernism (and disastrous effects of grand narratives in the 20th century) led to post-modern deconstruction and questioning of what they considered truths which were too easily accepted. Unfortunately, that led to cynicism, "analysis paralysis" and other forms of intellectual and (for lack of a better word) spiritual exhaustion. It's hard to believe in anything that, when you really break it down and analyze it is wrong in so many ways. And that applies to virtually everything, in all honesty. There are no perfect answers. It's important, though, to believe in something. You're right that we are seeing that cynicism turned from apathy to destruction and hate. I think a great case study in how to ask questions while still believing in building something positive is the show, The Good Place. The specific episode, "Jeremy Bearimy" deals with how you pick up the pieces from realizing that nothing matters, everything is a mess and humanity is deeply flawed.
djohnston 8y ago
it's probably less likely for younger people because we grew up with this form of media.
- isk517 8y ago
  I wonder. I'm in my 30's and while people my age maybe less likely to fall for fake news I know all to many people that will eagerly believe every obviously staged 'viral video' is completely real. I think the percentage of rubes remains the same regardless of age, just who is being targeted with what changes.
- DiffEq 8y ago
  There has always been fake news...yellow journalism, whatever; and it was always in just as much abundance. If you study history it becomes abundantly clear that most of man's terrible actions to one another is the result of fake news. Heck - this study is fake news; crafted to deliver exactly what the researchers wanted to find.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    Sure, but it has been less prevalent (in sheer volume) and hard to quantify historically. Now we can scrape their social media and get real data.
- asdff 8y ago
  They are worse off. News for them is headline deep; no one reads articles from reputable publications for info anymore, they'd rather have a handsome talking face on youtube 'break it down' in 20 minutes what would be a 4 minute nyt article containing the same factual points and none of the wishy-washy 'analysis.' The more you read about the world, the better things stick in your head, the more connections you make, and the more you know. If you leave the critical thinking to some internet celebrity with no incentive to be credible, you end up being coddled from a lot of the news and get basic facts wrong.
- wvenable 8y ago
  I disagree. One just has to look at Reddit to see that the younger generation is as caught up in all this as any. I think some people are just wired to think that way and, as we get older, some people switch to thinking that way. As I get older, I get more concerned that whether or not I mentally decline in one way or the other is just random chance and genetics.
devy 8y ago
> Yes, it was a shock, but most of all I am mortified that this could happen to me as well when I get to his age. I find this incredibly uncomfortable that the OP and you are attributing the spreading of fake news to ageism. No, I don't believe so. Since your evidence is an anecdote, I have many many more anecdotes to disapprove that assessment.
- pixelpoet 8y ago
  You're no more correct that your anecdotes disprove his claim. Also, he explicitly said "could happen"; it was a concern, not a conclusion. The central question in this discussion is whether or not there is an age correlation, and according to the linked study there is.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    We should be probably be careful though about the distinction between "humans aged 65+" and "humans aged 65+ at this moment in history". I.e., it seems likely there'd be cultural effects in this.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  The linked article cites a study which found older users to be more vulnerable (at least, they shared more false news stories.) The study controlled for political affiliation (because most of the fake stories were pro conservative.) While the GP's thoughts may be anecdotal, the study is not. Whether or not that makes you "uncomfortable" is irrelevant. Have you found issues with the study in question?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dkarl 8y ago
My dad was similar, but he thought it was all a joke. He thought sites like rense and infowars were today's equivalent of the counterculture political satire from when he was young. He knew there were people on those sites who weren't in on the joke, and people with mental illness, but I think he thought it was maybe 5% or 10%, and it just added to the fun for him. He got reverse-pwned by Poe's Law. Yet still he found it absolutely compelling, more fun than following the real news. Underneath a layer of gallows humor he always seemed really patient with humanity's stupidity, much more so than me, but I think late in his life his patience started to run out and to stave off despair he decided to find some nihilistic fun in it.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  I'vs seen this proclivity in a lot of older military guys. Korea and Vietnam vets. They just split their sides laughing at this stuff. Also, at least in the case of my father and uncle, the fact that people believe a lot of this stuff is what makes it all funny. I honestly don't believe they would be at all interested if no one believed it. I wonder if your dad is ex-military? Of course, all of that's older enlisted guys, (think vietnam era NCOs), which are the only ones I know. It would be interesting to find out if ex-military older commissioned guys find the same humor in any of what the country's going through. I'd like to think they wouldn't, but who knows?
  - aswanson 8y ago
    I'm not ex military but I find Alex Jones legitimately hilarious and I'm astonished people take him seriously. Before I left fb I had an ex-Marine old friend from elementary school on my list and he shared conspiracy memes relentlessly, very much mirroring the stuff Russia used in the 2016 election meddling. He actually believed it. I gave up trying to debunk it and played along.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ticmasta 8y ago
Reedx 8y ago
Some non-anecdotal evidence that supports your anecdote: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4971060/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4971060/ "Our research suggests that the cognitive process supported by the vmPFC may play a role in older adults’ susceptibility to scams."
Dirlewanger 8y ago
>I am mortified that this could happen to me as well when I get to his age The Internet was such a monumental shift in how society and civilization as a whole functions, and in such a small amount of time, that unless you grew up with it, it should be expected that whole swaths of demographics have no idea how to successfully navigate it (especially when there's next to zero centralized resources on its many pitfalls).
benj111 8y ago
I remember a boss not so long ago, similar age. Started having a rant about a woman that was emailing him, flirting with him. I realised it was some kind of phishing thing. He just took it at face value. He wasn't naïve, and had all his faculties, so it really stuck out. Maybe its like country bumpkins without street smarts, maybe they just havent learned the defenses needed?
- k9s9 8y ago
  True. There are so many issues most people don't even realize until it hits them personally. https://ledger.humanetech.com https://ledger.humanetech.com - to see the cumulative damage, engagement maximizing social networks/news media are doing.
- AJ007 8y ago
  It’s pattern recognition and confusion. The news stories that are fake are presented and look the same way as real ones. I would like to see a study using the same subjects but check to see if they can tell what is a Google search result and what is an ad.
blablabla123 8y ago
I know a guy that is half that age and did a similar process. Not from professor though but from someone who does random jobs. So having consumed all this fake stuff - which at the time seemed at best stupid and boring - he is now active in alt right like movements. One prequesite for this was probably also some degree of isolation.
bwanab 8y ago
If it helps, I'm over 65 and while I've seen it to an extent in other people my age, it hasn't happened to most of my friends and most importantly, as far as I can tell it hasn't happened to me. Your father notwithstanding, I think education and awareness have a lot to do with who gets sucked into the fake news vortex and who doesn't. On the other hand, I've seen some of my friends whom I thought would know better post some real dingers at times.
- aswanson 8y ago
  Those are ones that get me. Older but educated, intelligent people pushing this nonsense. Back in 2014, I got into with an older friend who was posting stuff from the gateway pundit. Tried to convince her it was an unreliable source but she continually doubled down. Lost cause. She was extremely right wing and it confirmed her biases. That was enough.
aswanson 8y ago
Does he live alone? I'm convinced that plays a large factor.
sandworm101 8y ago
There is some actual biology behind this. Many of the natal symptoms of aging promote "fake news" and what are generally considered "right wing" views. As one ages one's memory begins to slip. More recent memories slip first. So in the hard drive of one's mind, the past seems better and more reliable than the present. The nurse who visits once a week is a perpetual stranger not to be trusted. And if she speaks a strange language...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
marton78 8y ago
It could be beginning dementia / Alzheimer's. At least that is the case for my father. Similarly to believing fake news, also lost his humour, he just doesn't get jokes any more, he takes them at face value. I hope this is not the case for your dad and I'm sorry if I scared you, but you could consider having him checked.
- JKCalhoun 8y ago
  IDK, I think it might be fear. Fear seems to come on as people see people their age dying of various diseases, etc. Mortality is staring them in the face. And though it starts with the fear, everything that panders to fear follows....
- nikkwong 8y ago
  What's the use in getting it checked? It's not like early cancer detection in which an early diagnosis might have some effect on the outcome of the disease. (?)
  - lumberjack 8y ago
    There are meds that can slow down the demise. Also just knowing helps a lot in how to deal with the suffering.
  - newname2018 8y ago
    Just to insert a single bit of anecdata here. In my wife's case the treatments to help with a dementia type disease involved medications that did improve her condition for a very short time followed by a very sharp decline. The physicians warned us about this and in one of her lucid moments she stated she wished to undergo this therapy regardless of the outcome being that what was happening to her was so mindbendingly terrible that even a few more more days of a "shared reality" was preferred to her ultimate condition. I guess my single point of reference here is that there are trade offs to this kind of therapy and family and PoAs need to carefully consider any type of treatment
- hkt 8y ago
  I'm sorry about your father, but your comment made me wonder how common this is. I wonder: could an aging population endanger democracy by not being able to distinguish truth from falsehood?
mensetmanusman 8y ago
There are multiple levels of trolling happening in these situations. Many read Infowars as satire like the Onion, and they get off pretending to believe its true just to mess with people. It’s the whole flat earth thing.
- wmeredith 8y ago
  “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night If someone’s hobby is pretending to be an asshole or stupid... they might actually just be an asshole or stupid.
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    “I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking.” —Dorothy Sayers That’s twice this thread I’ve seen this Vonnegut quote as a thought-terminating cliche, which is two times too many. If you want to have a deeper discussion on the effects of irony on a community, by all means let’s do so. What we should not do is reduce the entire thing down to a pithy mess of fake profundity based on the fame of its speaker, that would be shouted down as the unsubstantiated conclusion it is, if any one of us said it.
  - mensetmanusman 8y ago
    It also describes many professional commedians. Humans are strange :)
paulie_a 8y ago
I've seen quite a few previously open minded and intellectual people fall into an echo chamber and choose less outlets as they age. They get locked into one or maybe two similar ideological outlets and everything else is wrong.
ezoe 8y ago
Same here. My Japanese father who speak English and regularly traveling foreign countries for the job is now became extreme nationalist and far-right fanatics. I know he didn't have that kind of personality before. It's quite shocking. And yes. I'm worrying to become like him one day.
leetbulb 8y ago
It all happened when my father got an iPad and a Facebook account. Now he sits around and consumes the cancerous vomit spewed by "old friends" and predatory "news" outlets. He doesn't understand how any of it works; he has fallen victim, and there's nothing at all that I can do about it. He takes pride in his involvement, even if it's just consumption. It's tearing him away from reality and his family. It's almost as sad, scary, and infuriating as watching someone decline due to mental disease. If anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears.
- hkt 8y ago
  I'm not sure but I've noticed similar behaviours in others. I think it is due to the random reward of getting an item when you swipe a few times in the facebook app: people become absorbed in it the same way they become absorbed in gambling terminals, and crucially it is the same mechanism of reward. It might be worth considering what interventions people make with problem gamblers. I suspect if those interventions would work for people in your situation too.
- Chris_Chambers 8y ago
  I wonder what the rest of your family says about you behind your back.
hkt 8y ago
My mother did the same. She was tolerant once.
oldboyFX 8y ago
Also happened to both my parents, especially my dad. My mom can still be reasoned with and I can change or at least open her mind with logical arguments. My dad on the other hand is all in.

cheez 8y ago

I used to read the national enquirer (UFOs, Bigfoot!) religiously as a kid. I suspect there is something that appeals to people at certain stages in life. Most likely, as you get older/younger you desire stimulation. In mid-life, you're probably over-stimulated.

pesmhey 8y ago
Hey friend, let me in on some of that get-younger juice! Just poking fun.
aswanson 8y ago
Yup. In middle school a buddy of mine and I used to read all that stuff. Lots of fun.
hkt 8y ago
Fairy tales!

dev_dull 8y ago

Stay unplugged from social media and especially mainstream media and you’ll be just fine.

choochooboogalu 8y ago
Gather all information from primary sources? Sarcasm aside, I do agree that journals and other longer period periodicals are more reliable.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  In the age of the internet, that doesn't have to be as sarcastic as you think it might.
  - asdff 8y ago
    You still aren't going to be emailing eyewitnesses for their take.
dandare 8y ago
You mean "Don't trust mainstream media, watch this shocking video instead"?
- dahfizz 8y ago
  That's clearly not what OP said.
- trgn 8y ago
  Maybe rather as in, stay away from mainstream media because the hosts will literally talk to you as if you were a toddler, yell at you really, constantly flash colorful thingies in your face, blast stupid loud jingles, and drag out idiotic news stories over days as if they were soap operas. I cringe when I visit my parents and CNN is on in the middle of the day. I'm convinced that that loud, obnoxious infotainment contributes to their degraded mental faculties.
  - Brakenshire 8y ago
    That’s more 24 hour news than the mainstream media.
    - theWheez 8y ago
      Could you expand on what you mean by this separation?
      - Brakenshire 8y ago
        I think the things you mention are just more characteristic of rolling news in particular than they are of the media in general, which is incredibly varied in form, tone and reliability. Flashy graphics, soap opera style narratives, shouting for drama etc are all dictated by the economic forces which underpin rolling news, in particular having to generate an enormous amount of material as cheaply as possible, and in effect a competition to get viewers addicted. There is fantastic news and analysis elsewhere, a large part of it in mainstream publications.
    - 8y ago
SkyMarshal 8y ago
Data journalism and long-form deep investigative journalism is fine, or least less bad. With the caveat that data journalism that illustrates past or current events is fine, but that which tries to draw correlations or make predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. Short form journalism I ignore, or seek the primary source (like a president’s speech or similar).
- ergothus 8y ago
  >long-form deep investigative journalism I like the distinction you put here, as I've found most "long form" journalism to be focused on superficial details and to try to emphasize innuendo and rumor into emotional plays rather than focusing on facts. As soon as I hit a physical description of one of the people involved that covers more than a sentence (when the article isn't covering a topic involving a physical description), I know the author isn't focused on the parts I care about. Which is a shame, as there is plenty of investigative journalism that benefits from deeper coverage. Just a lot fewer people doing it. (likely as a consequence of fewer people caring enough to make it financially viable, to properly place blame, but from my end I want the material, not to place blame)
  - 8ytecoder 8y ago
    News == current happenings. It really never helps me with seeing the bigger picture. Unless I'm already aware of the big picture in which case News augments my understanding. Magazines == Get the big picture on a broad range of topics. Books == Get the full picture on specific topics. Looking at things this way I have come to realize that most news I used to read doesn't add any empirical value to me. Sure I can show off I know this and that and that happened and how stupid is that and laugh at it. But that's about it. News (cable news) is literally entertainment IMHO.
    - im3w1l 8y ago
      > Books == Get the full picture on specific topics. No. You'll get a well informed point of view but it's still just a single persons point of view.
asdff 8y ago
Are people even plugged into mainstream media, barring talking heads on fox news, cnn, or youtube? Even on reddit, which purpotes to be more informative than a youtube comment section, it is plainly obvious the bulk of the commenters don't read the article beyond the linked headline. There is nothing sinister about repudable publications and their written articles.
Florin_Andrei 8y ago
Yes, completely isolate yourself. It'll do you good. /s
- 50656E6973 8y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio

mcculley 8y ago

You are not alone. I have witnessed similar changes in people older than me. I have also been wondering how to prevent that.

bonestamp2 8y ago
It's not surprising. That generation grew up as the conventions in media itself were being developed. Those are my parents and they have a much different view and trust in media than my generation, and my kids have even less trust in media. My dad flipped. My mom hasn't (yet) but I think that's because she's overly skeptical of everything. The part I fear most is that healthy dose of skepticism that most people used to have is being turned against those people. If you're not with us, you're against us. Nope, that's a false dichotomy. My father doesn't know what a false dichotomy is. That wasn't something he was taught in grade school or business school. That is something I was taught. I think the best thing we can do is not argue with the older generation about the subject matter itself, but simply arm them with the tools to find flawed arguments in the subject matter. If you're reading this, and you're not familiar with the concept of logical fallacies, that's a good place to start because fake news is almost always built on logical fallacies that are easy to disassemble once you can spot them: https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/ https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-kno... Once everyone has the tools to debate effectively, then we can have civilized discussions about the actual subject matter itself.
- JKCalhoun 8y ago
  > The part I fear most is that healthy dose of skepticism that most people used to have is being turned against those people. That is my fear as well. "Believe nothing," would be the wrong takeaway from all this, but I'm afraid a cynical population of our youth might very well be following that course. Be skeptical of skepticism too I tell my daughters.
  - michaelchisari 8y ago
    The New Sincerity and Meta-Modernist trends offer a refuge of sorts. The naiveté of modernism (and disastrous effects of grand narratives in the 20th century) led to post-modern deconstruction and questioning of what they considered truths which were too easily accepted. Unfortunately, that led to cynicism, "analysis paralysis" and other forms of intellectual and (for lack of a better word) spiritual exhaustion. It's hard to believe in anything that, when you really break it down and analyze it is wrong in so many ways. And that applies to virtually everything, in all honesty. There are no perfect answers. It's important, though, to believe in something. You're right that we are seeing that cynicism turned from apathy to destruction and hate. I think a great case study in how to ask questions while still believing in building something positive is the show, The Good Place. The specific episode, "Jeremy Bearimy" deals with how you pick up the pieces from realizing that nothing matters, everything is a mess and humanity is deeply flawed.

djohnston 8y ago

it's probably less likely for younger people because we grew up with this form of media.

isk517 8y ago
I wonder. I'm in my 30's and while people my age maybe less likely to fall for fake news I know all to many people that will eagerly believe every obviously staged 'viral video' is completely real. I think the percentage of rubes remains the same regardless of age, just who is being targeted with what changes.
DiffEq 8y ago
There has always been fake news...yellow journalism, whatever; and it was always in just as much abundance. If you study history it becomes abundantly clear that most of man's terrible actions to one another is the result of fake news. Heck - this study is fake news; crafted to deliver exactly what the researchers wanted to find.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Sure, but it has been less prevalent (in sheer volume) and hard to quantify historically. Now we can scrape their social media and get real data.
asdff 8y ago
They are worse off. News for them is headline deep; no one reads articles from reputable publications for info anymore, they'd rather have a handsome talking face on youtube 'break it down' in 20 minutes what would be a 4 minute nyt article containing the same factual points and none of the wishy-washy 'analysis.' The more you read about the world, the better things stick in your head, the more connections you make, and the more you know. If you leave the critical thinking to some internet celebrity with no incentive to be credible, you end up being coddled from a lot of the news and get basic facts wrong.
wvenable 8y ago
I disagree. One just has to look at Reddit to see that the younger generation is as caught up in all this as any. I think some people are just wired to think that way and, as we get older, some people switch to thinking that way. As I get older, I get more concerned that whether or not I mentally decline in one way or the other is just random chance and genetics.

devy 8y ago

> Yes, it was a shock, but most of all I am mortified that this could happen to me as well when I get to his age. I find this incredibly uncomfortable that the OP and you are attributing the spreading of fake news to ageism. No, I don't believe so. Since your evidence is an anecdote, I have many many more anecdotes to disapprove that assessment.

pixelpoet 8y ago
You're no more correct that your anecdotes disprove his claim. Also, he explicitly said "could happen"; it was a concern, not a conclusion. The central question in this discussion is whether or not there is an age correlation, and according to the linked study there is.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  We should be probably be careful though about the distinction between "humans aged 65+" and "humans aged 65+ at this moment in history". I.e., it seems likely there'd be cultural effects in this.
EpicEng 8y ago
The linked article cites a study which found older users to be more vulnerable (at least, they shared more false news stories.) The study controlled for political affiliation (because most of the fake stories were pro conservative.) While the GP's thoughts may be anecdotal, the study is not. Whether or not that makes you "uncomfortable" is irrelevant. Have you found issues with the study in question?
deleted 8y ago
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dkarl 8y ago

My dad was similar, but he thought it was all a joke. He thought sites like rense and infowars were today's equivalent of the counterculture political satire from when he was young. He knew there were people on those sites who weren't in on the joke, and people with mental illness, but I think he thought it was maybe 5% or 10%, and it just added to the fun for him. He got reverse-pwned by Poe's Law. Yet still he found it absolutely compelling, more fun than following the real news. Underneath a layer of gallows humor he always seemed really patient with humanity's stupidity, much more so than me, but I think late in his life his patience started to run out and to stave off despair he decided to find some nihilistic fun in it.

bilbo0s 8y ago
I'vs seen this proclivity in a lot of older military guys. Korea and Vietnam vets. They just split their sides laughing at this stuff. Also, at least in the case of my father and uncle, the fact that people believe a lot of this stuff is what makes it all funny. I honestly don't believe they would be at all interested if no one believed it. I wonder if your dad is ex-military? Of course, all of that's older enlisted guys, (think vietnam era NCOs), which are the only ones I know. It would be interesting to find out if ex-military older commissioned guys find the same humor in any of what the country's going through. I'd like to think they wouldn't, but who knows?
- aswanson 8y ago
  I'm not ex military but I find Alex Jones legitimately hilarious and I'm astonished people take him seriously. Before I left fb I had an ex-Marine old friend from elementary school on my list and he shared conspiracy memes relentlessly, very much mirroring the stuff Russia used in the 2016 election meddling. He actually believed it. I gave up trying to debunk it and played along.
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Reedx 8y ago

Some non-anecdotal evidence that supports your anecdote: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4971060/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4971060/ "Our research suggests that the cognitive process supported by the vmPFC may play a role in older adults’ susceptibility to scams."

Dirlewanger 8y ago

>I am mortified that this could happen to me as well when I get to his age The Internet was such a monumental shift in how society and civilization as a whole functions, and in such a small amount of time, that unless you grew up with it, it should be expected that whole swaths of demographics have no idea how to successfully navigate it (especially when there's next to zero centralized resources on its many pitfalls).

benj111 8y ago

I remember a boss not so long ago, similar age. Started having a rant about a woman that was emailing him, flirting with him. I realised it was some kind of phishing thing. He just took it at face value. He wasn't naïve, and had all his faculties, so it really stuck out. Maybe its like country bumpkins without street smarts, maybe they just havent learned the defenses needed?

k9s9 8y ago
True. There are so many issues most people don't even realize until it hits them personally. https://ledger.humanetech.com https://ledger.humanetech.com - to see the cumulative damage, engagement maximizing social networks/news media are doing.
AJ007 8y ago
It’s pattern recognition and confusion. The news stories that are fake are presented and look the same way as real ones. I would like to see a study using the same subjects but check to see if they can tell what is a Google search result and what is an ad.

blablabla123 8y ago

I know a guy that is half that age and did a similar process. Not from professor though but from someone who does random jobs. So having consumed all this fake stuff - which at the time seemed at best stupid and boring - he is now active in alt right like movements. One prequesite for this was probably also some degree of isolation.

bwanab 8y ago

If it helps, I'm over 65 and while I've seen it to an extent in other people my age, it hasn't happened to most of my friends and most importantly, as far as I can tell it hasn't happened to me. Your father notwithstanding, I think education and awareness have a lot to do with who gets sucked into the fake news vortex and who doesn't. On the other hand, I've seen some of my friends whom I thought would know better post some real dingers at times.

aswanson 8y ago
Those are ones that get me. Older but educated, intelligent people pushing this nonsense. Back in 2014, I got into with an older friend who was posting stuff from the gateway pundit. Tried to convince her it was an unreliable source but she continually doubled down. Lost cause. She was extremely right wing and it confirmed her biases. That was enough.

aswanson 8y ago

Does he live alone? I'm convinced that plays a large factor.

sandworm101 8y ago

There is some actual biology behind this. Many of the natal symptoms of aging promote "fake news" and what are generally considered "right wing" views. As one ages one's memory begins to slip. More recent memories slip first. So in the hard drive of one's mind, the past seems better and more reliable than the present. The nurse who visits once a week is a perpetual stranger not to be trusted. And if she speaks a strange language...

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marton78 8y ago

It could be beginning dementia / Alzheimer's. At least that is the case for my father. Similarly to believing fake news, also lost his humour, he just doesn't get jokes any more, he takes them at face value. I hope this is not the case for your dad and I'm sorry if I scared you, but you could consider having him checked.

JKCalhoun 8y ago
IDK, I think it might be fear. Fear seems to come on as people see people their age dying of various diseases, etc. Mortality is staring them in the face. And though it starts with the fear, everything that panders to fear follows....
nikkwong 8y ago
What's the use in getting it checked? It's not like early cancer detection in which an early diagnosis might have some effect on the outcome of the disease. (?)
- lumberjack 8y ago
  There are meds that can slow down the demise. Also just knowing helps a lot in how to deal with the suffering.
- newname2018 8y ago
  Just to insert a single bit of anecdata here. In my wife's case the treatments to help with a dementia type disease involved medications that did improve her condition for a very short time followed by a very sharp decline. The physicians warned us about this and in one of her lucid moments she stated she wished to undergo this therapy regardless of the outcome being that what was happening to her was so mindbendingly terrible that even a few more more days of a "shared reality" was preferred to her ultimate condition. I guess my single point of reference here is that there are trade offs to this kind of therapy and family and PoAs need to carefully consider any type of treatment
hkt 8y ago
I'm sorry about your father, but your comment made me wonder how common this is. I wonder: could an aging population endanger democracy by not being able to distinguish truth from falsehood?

mensetmanusman 8y ago

There are multiple levels of trolling happening in these situations. Many read Infowars as satire like the Onion, and they get off pretending to believe its true just to mess with people. It’s the whole flat earth thing.

wmeredith 8y ago
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night If someone’s hobby is pretending to be an asshole or stupid... they might actually just be an asshole or stupid.
- Karunamon 8y ago
  “I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking.” —Dorothy Sayers That’s twice this thread I’ve seen this Vonnegut quote as a thought-terminating cliche, which is two times too many. If you want to have a deeper discussion on the effects of irony on a community, by all means let’s do so. What we should not do is reduce the entire thing down to a pithy mess of fake profundity based on the fame of its speaker, that would be shouted down as the unsubstantiated conclusion it is, if any one of us said it.
- mensetmanusman 8y ago
  It also describes many professional commedians. Humans are strange :)

paulie_a 8y ago

I've seen quite a few previously open minded and intellectual people fall into an echo chamber and choose less outlets as they age. They get locked into one or maybe two similar ideological outlets and everything else is wrong.

ezoe 8y ago

Same here. My Japanese father who speak English and regularly traveling foreign countries for the job is now became extreme nationalist and far-right fanatics. I know he didn't have that kind of personality before. It's quite shocking. And yes. I'm worrying to become like him one day.

leetbulb 8y ago

It all happened when my father got an iPad and a Facebook account. Now he sits around and consumes the cancerous vomit spewed by "old friends" and predatory "news" outlets. He doesn't understand how any of it works; he has fallen victim, and there's nothing at all that I can do about it. He takes pride in his involvement, even if it's just consumption. It's tearing him away from reality and his family. It's almost as sad, scary, and infuriating as watching someone decline due to mental disease. If anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears.

hkt 8y ago
I'm not sure but I've noticed similar behaviours in others. I think it is due to the random reward of getting an item when you swipe a few times in the facebook app: people become absorbed in it the same way they become absorbed in gambling terminals, and crucially it is the same mechanism of reward. It might be worth considering what interventions people make with problem gamblers. I suspect if those interventions would work for people in your situation too.
Chris_Chambers 8y ago
I wonder what the rest of your family says about you behind your back.

hkt 8y ago

My mother did the same. She was tolerant once.

oldboyFX 8y ago

Also happened to both my parents, especially my dad. My mom can still be reasoned with and I can change or at least open her mind with logical arguments. My dad on the other hand is all in.