False Expertise: Just Share and Feel Empowered in Intellect

September 15, 2022

I read “Share on Social Media Makes Us Overconfident in Our Knowledge.” The write up states:

Social media sharers believe that they are knowledgeable about the content they share, even if they have not read it or have only glanced at a headline. Sharing can create this rise in confidence because by putting information online, sharers publicly commit to an expert identity. Doing so shapes their sense of self, helping them to feel just as knowledgeable as their post makes them seem.

If the source were a hippy dippy online marketing outfit, I would have ignored the write up. But the research comes from a cow town university. I believe the write up. Would those cowpokes steer me wrong, pilgrim?

I wonder if the researchers will take time out after a Cowboy Kent Rollins cook out to explore the correlation between the boundless expertise of the Silicon Valley “real news” crowd and this group’s dependence on Twitter and similar output channels?

That would make an interesting study because some of the messaging is wild and crazy like a college professor lost in a college bar on dollar beer night.

Stephen E Arnold, September 15, 2022

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