This is a good example of why studies need to be well designed in order to avoid being useless. The headline suggests that this will tell us something about so

This is a good example of why studies need to be well designed in order to avoid being useless. The headline suggests that this will tell us something about social media, but I really think it just tells us that people who spend time and energy on being informed are more informed. People who get their news primarily from social media are, by definition, people who don't seek out news in other venues. The study does not seek to ascertain if they are seeking out news on social media (i.e. they think social media is sufficient) or if they simply encounter it on accident in their non-news-related use. It seems like, if the goal is to understand how social media impacts understanding of the news, this study asked very bad questions. In fact, if you remove nearly everything about social media, I think this piece gets clearer and the study stronger. People who don't seek out news coverage and encounter news on accident are less informed and somewhat more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. It's interesting that techcrunch talks about demographic weaknesses (which are also good to note) but doesn't really dive into what feels like a more basic problem.