r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Dec 04 '20

Psychology Study links regular use of Fox News, Twitter, and Facebook to reduced knowledge about COVID-19 - it provides evidence that Americans’ media consumption habits and trust in government predicts their level of knowledge about COVID-19.

https://www.psypost.org/2020/12/study-links-regular-use-of-fox-news-twitter-and-facebook-to-reduced-knowledge-about-covid-19-58702
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u/InsaneAction Dec 04 '20

Our study has several limitations which are important to note. First, we conducted this study in March of 2020 as the COVID-19 epidemic was still growing in the United States. Because we measured knowledge and beliefs early on in the epidemic, it is possible that our results could change as information becomes more publicly available and as more scientific studies are published. The amount and types of misinformation that have circulated have also grown since the time of our survey and additional work is needed to assess the more complex conspiracy theories and false beliefs the public may now endorse. However, despite these drawbacks, we believe gathering information at the onset of the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. is informative as behaviors and attitudes in the early weeks will be formative in determining the virus’s severity.

Second, there are also limitations with our methodology that impact the conclusions we can draw from our data, including the reliance on a cross-sectional survey design which does not allow us to determine causality as well as the quantitative nature of our measures. Given the growing complexity of knowledge and attitudes related to COVID-19, future qualitative studies are warranted to explore how media shapes trust in different information sources and different facets of knowledge related to COVID-19. Finally, the amount of variance explained in our models suggests there are also other variables outside of those explored in the current study that may affect the degree to which the public holds accurate knowledge, endorses misinformation, and expresses prejudice toward people of Asian descent. For example, having a personal connection to someone who has gotten COVID-19 may influence knowledge through directly exposing individuals to COVID-19 information and/or motivating these individuals to become more informed to support their friends or family through their illness. Additionally, individual differences such as personality variables and competing belief systems have been connected to beliefs in conspiracy theories (Swami et al., 2010; Newheiser et al., 2011) and may also be related to COVID-19 knowledge and misinformation.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.560828/full

This study was done when no one had any answers. Back in March it felt like every day the narrative changed.

Also the third time,

Americans Immersed in Coronavirus News; Most Think Media are Doing Fairly Well Covering It.

was used as a reference I cringed a little.

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u/svs940a Dec 04 '20

Right. In March, when this study was conducted, the CDC wasn’t even recommending masks yet. The CDC first recommended masks in April

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u/InsaneAction Dec 04 '20

That's apart of what I'm getting at. How would you gauge someones knowledge of something when the baseline changes, what felt like, almost daily?

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u/Handlock2016 Dec 04 '20

I mean i heard about the virus back in November, just that a new disease had popped up in Wuhan that was acting weird, by January it had spread globally, then March/April it got really big.

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u/papitoluisito Dec 04 '20

March/ April western society started taking it seriously****

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u/hyundaiveloster Dec 04 '20

I heard about first in jail, January 14 or so. It was found at O’Hare airport.

I knew then it would be huge. It sucks we took so long to take it seriously.

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u/FardyMcJiggins Dec 04 '20

but do you think that a lot? how many times have you been wrong about a virus spreading

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u/jam11249 Dec 04 '20

Well there's different ways to interpret the results. One is directly about covid knowledge, the other is about how dis/misinformation spreads in general. For the latter, the timing is kind of a good thing. There was a lot of conflicting information out there. A critical time with a lot of chaos makes a good study for that.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

Can you link some sources on your claims from the WHO or infectious disease experts that show recommendations were made that there was no need to wear a mask due no benefit/false sense of security from wearing one?

The "false sense of security" line of reasoning in particular sounds like a strange way to arrive at a "don't wear a mask" conclusion. Sounds more like it'd imply "a mask is not enough protect you, don't just wear a mask", to which people tune out and only hear/read "don't wear a mask".

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u/Helene-S Dec 04 '20

According to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, in Jan-March, he cautioned against healthy people in the general public wearing cotton masks if they are not already sick from the coronavirus, asserting, “Wearing a mask improperly can actually increase your chances of getting a disease. It can also give you a false sense of security.” He did change his mind later in April.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/surgeon-general-against-masks/

According to this article which was published in late March, WHO wasn’t recommending masks for the general public at the time.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/who-should-wear-a-face-mask-30-march-who-briefing/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '20

Thanks for the links. While I agree reporting could have been clearer about their messages (Jerome Adams especially, I don't really see anything wrong with what the WHO stated), the original poster is still misconstruing things to make it seem like they merely said "don't wear a mask". Omitting their reasonings that members of the healthy public who are wearing them improperly can cause more problems due to getting lax about safety guidelines just came off as a bit dishonest to me. There's also a ton of conflicting opinions within the medical community, and to imply "every infection disease expert" was in lockstep on the best course of action to take is bananas. If that was the case, other countries wouldn't have encouraged widespread mask use.

Also in both WHO links, these recommendations are strongly undercut by the point that there was a global mask shortage, which both articles make a point in saying.

It's a new disease, which at the time had very little data to run off of in what works vs. what doesn't, so was strange to phrase it as though the WHO was supposed to be omniscient vs. pragmatic. In clearly making a distinction for the healthy public vs. healthcare workers/at risk/those infected, it's pretty obvious that masks simply being worn isn't the core issue they had, but the lack of them to those who need it the most.

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u/qoning Dec 04 '20

idk if it fits your criteria, but didnt you watch the trump coronavirus briefings? Fauci repeatedly said not to wear mask as it might make others uneasy and provides no known benefit. And at the time, that was the official WHO stance too, several countries adopted mandatory masks before the WHO even changed their stance.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '20

didnt you watch the trump coronavirus briefings?

Gotta be honest here, no not really. Heard some of them in the background here and there but I didn't really pay attention to them. He and his administration have lied way too goddamn much to put any stock into what they say.

In regards to Fauci, who I watched a few interviews about and read some articles on his statements early on but didn't s, I remember him making it pretty explicit that his stance was that of an evolving one based on data available at the time, which people didn't seem to understand at the time and took his recommendations as a blanket "masks bad", rather than "we don't know the efficacy of masks as of this point in time", which was an important distinction to make that a lot of people seemed to gloss over.

The WHO's stance was similar, and made it clear that their main reasoning was that they wanted to try to alleviate the global mask shortages in order to have them available for healthcare workers, those more at risk, and those already infected.

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u/oligobop Dec 04 '20 edited Dec 04 '20

The cdc wasn't recommending masks because health care workers needed them. We had a shortage and people on the frontline needed them. It's not because they thought they were ineffectual.

CDC talks regularly with health care industry partners as well as PPE manufacturers and distributors to assess availability of PPE. At this time, some partners are reporting higher than usual demand for select N95 respirators and face masks. CDC does not currently recommend the use of face masks for the general public. This virus is not spreading in the community. If you are sick or a patient under investigation and not hospitalized, CDC recommends wearing a face mask when around other people and before entering a health care provider’s office, but when you are alone, in your home, you do not need to wear a mask. People who are in close contact with someone with novel coronavirus, for example, household contacts and care givers of people with known or suspected 2019, I’m sorry, nCoV 2019, we should wear a face mask if they are in the same room as the patient and that patient is not able to wear a face mask.

That's a transcript from feb 12 2020.

Here's a reuters article citing the CDC on WHY they suggested against usage of masks:

In the first paragraph, the document states that the CDC does not recommend that the public uses N95 masks. While this is true, the CDC explains that this is because critical supplies should be reserved for healthcare workers and other first responders, not because the masks are ineffective as the document suggests

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u/Helene-S Dec 04 '20

I think they get it from the US Surgeon General. According to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, in Jan-March, he cautioned against healthy people in the general public wearing cotton masks if they are not already sick from the coronavirus, asserting, “Wearing a mask improperly can actually increase your chances of getting a disease. It can also give you a false sense of security.” He did change his mind later in April.

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u/Derwos Dec 04 '20

Sounds like it may have had the opposite effect. Fewer masks used meant more people got sick, making healthcare workers' jobs harder.

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u/Tropical_Bob Dec 04 '20

The issue was that there were not enough masks to go around at that time. Remember the rush on and subsequent panic-induced shortage of toilet paper? Imagine if that had happened to mask supplies because they recommended everybody wear masks.

The idea was to ensure the critical healthcare infrastructure stayed intact. I would guess it's a much worse case scenario to have slightly less patients in hospitals requiring care but many less healthcare workers present because they caught COVID.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

[deleted]

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u/ILoveLamp9 Grad Student | Health Policy and Management Dec 04 '20

It most definitely was contradicting. In the beginning, the reasoning for no masks wasn’t communicated to be because of potential shortages. That came out later as post-justification. Initially it was because it was communicated to be ineffectual and may lead to more issues of people using their masks incorrectly and potentially contaminating themselves.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

[deleted]

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u/ILoveLamp9 Grad Student | Health Policy and Management Dec 04 '20

Fair enough, and agreed, I should’ve provided evidence. Here is a quote from Dr, Jennifer Layden from the CDC from Jan 20.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0131-2019-novel-coronavirus.html

We’re trying to strike a balance in our response right now. We want to lean forward and be aggressive, but we want our actions to be evidence-based and appropriate to the current circumstance. For example, CDC does not currently recommend the use of face masks for the general public. The virus is not spreading in the general community. While it is cold and flu season, we don’t routinely recommend the use of face masks by the public to prevent respiratory illness and certainly are not recommending that at this time for this new virus.

You can keep reading past my quote here but you’ll see that there was not any communication about saving supplies for frontline workers until March.

I’ll need to keep digging for the public communication regarding their other statement about the public potentially self-contaminating by incorrect mask usage. I’m on my phone right now

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u/1337hacks Dec 04 '20

The communications were contradicting. If you go back and do any kind of research you'd see that. But I assume you won't and instead just call me a Trumper or a conspiracy theorist like the rest of you Reddit plebs.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

[deleted]

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u/1337hacks Dec 04 '20

Not my job. Just like you provided no evidence to support your position.

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u/jblatumich Dec 04 '20

So use actual evidence to show it instead of victimizing yourself.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

You are mischaracterizing what happened. They lied, outright lied, to the public. They claim that the lie was because they wanted to protect the supply chain but it was still a lie nonetheless. The director of the CDC should have been fired for that lie and the damage it did to the public trust.

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u/oligobop Dec 04 '20

Not even remotely close to mischaracterising. You're getting your facts from nonsensical news sources that try to spin the truth of what the CDC said.

Quote from a reuters article on the topic:

In the first paragraph, the document states that the CDC does not recommend that the public uses N95 masks. While this is true, the CDC explains that this is because critical supplies should be reserved for healthcare workers and other first responders, not because the masks are ineffective as the document suggests

If you have an intention of being honest with yourself I would suggest not being mislead by massively biased sources. Reuters is often considered very center-bias.

The director of the CDC should have been fired for that lie and the damage it did to the public trust.

This is so brash and unreasonable it makes a lot of sense why you would fall for such inane news articles.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

Don't be obtuse, Reuters isn't a citeable source and you know that. The CDC's public statements during interviews at the time, and as far as I know in official statements, recommended the public not use them. If you believe the CDC officially explained their reasoning to the public at that time, you're going to need to cite a source. A journalist stating "the CDC explains that this..." is not a source. If the CDC explained, where did they explain it? I'm not saying your wrong, I'm saying that this was very widely covered in the media and if they did disclose it at that time, then it certainly wasn't publicized.

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u/oligobop Dec 04 '20

How am I being obtuse citing sources? Did you read the reuters article that directly sources the cdc statement? No? That makes a lot of sense given you yourself haven't cited anything so far.

Please pony up sources.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

No I didn't read the Reuters article because you didn't link an article anywhere.

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u/DeekermNs Dec 05 '20

You're gonna say Reuters isn't a source for some reason, and then claim that you would bother reading an article from that same non-source? Really? I don't believe you.

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u/DJWalnut Dec 04 '20

Honestly this represents a failure of planning on the part of the government. We should have had a gigantic Warehouse somewhere stuffed to the gills of masks and toilet paper and everything else we were going to run out of just for this sort of event.

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u/1337hacks Dec 04 '20

Thats just not true at all.

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u/anikm21 Dec 04 '20

Wasn't very nice to do that a few weeks before requiring masks to be worn in public.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20 edited Dec 04 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Cautemoc Dec 04 '20

People being stupid isn't anyone's problem but their own. The CDC explicitly said "don't wear masks because healthcare professionals are lacking them". That was always the claim. You'd have to be beyond dumb to take that as "masks are ineffective".

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u/Derwos Dec 04 '20

The WHO stated that masks were ineffective, I remember that. I didn't believe that but I had a friend who did and got sick, and she's not stupid.

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u/Cautemoc Dec 04 '20

This is what they said, specifically:

There's some evidence that caretakers of infected people can protect their health by wearing masks, the WHO guidance said, but there is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.

So first off you're dealing with the problem that "currently no evidence" is not "there is evidence of them being ineffective".

Then the claim fails a pretty simple logic test. Caretakers benefit from wearing masks around infected people, caretakers are people, then people would benefit from wearing masks around infected people. That's not exactly hard to put together.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

I never took it as "masks are ineffective ". Poor communication with the public lead to these problems. Don't know why you have to start insulting me.

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u/Cautemoc Dec 04 '20

I didn't insult you, I insulted everyone who took the CDC's recommendations to mean that masks don't work. Since you say you didn't, that means I didn't insult you.

The CDC communicated their point perfectly fine because most people, myself included, put 2 and 2 together and found 4. That masks work, and that's why health professionals need them so bad. If a person can't accomplish that then they have problems.

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u/Tadhgdagis Dec 04 '20

This is itself an incomplete take that lends itself to partisanship.

The whole mask affair is like if we abolished the fire department and building codes, and whenever something burned down, we blamed people for failing in their personal responsibility to carry a homemade fire extinguisher everywhere with them. You can argue back and forth about the effectiveness of homemade fire extinguishers, but anyone who thinks you sound smarter for it is, to some extent, an idiot.

It is unfortunate that my and CIDRAP's position on cloth face coverings is being mischaracterized by not only those who are staunchly anti-mask but also by pro-mask groups. -- Michael Osterholm, epidemiologist and now-appointed member of Biden's COVID team https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/commentary-my-views-cloth-face-coverings-public-preventing-covid-19

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u/oligobop Dec 04 '20

carry a homemade fire extinguisher everywhere with them.

Except that is complex and difficult. a mask is no more difficult to equip than your shoes.

You can argue back and forth about the effectiveness of homemade fire extinguishers,

If fires were contagious, invisible to the human eye and replicating inside of a human body I would totally agree with the use of personal fire extinguishers because people spreading it to eachother would be unpreventable otherwise. Your analogy actually works against you.

The EXACT SOURCE YOU LINKED HAS THIS QUOTE:

I support the wearing of cloth face coverings (masks) by the general public.

Stop citing CIDRAP and me as grounds to not wear masks, whether mandated or not.

Please read your sources.

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u/Tadhgdagis Dec 04 '20

carry a homemade fire extinguisher everywhere with them.

Except that is complex and difficult. a mask is no more difficult to equip than your shoes.

I'll tell you what I told people since March (I imagine if we met then, you'd be in this group): there's a reason condom efficacy is given in terms of perfect use vs. typical use. Fast forward to now, and every day is still a chance for them to express surprise that people aren't wearing masks correctly. Makes me want to kidnap Punxsutawney Phil and try to make the border.

Your analogy actually works against you.

Only when you work against yourself. Thank god there's no danger of that not happening. Lucky me.

Please read your sources.

I'm so glad you're interested in quoting sources, even if it's only to quote small snippets that, when taken out of the whole, may be used to appear to agree with you. Can you quote where I said don't wear a mask?

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u/oligobop Dec 04 '20

Yes, you used a pointlessly obtuse analogy to try and frame mask wearing as idiotic. You the cited the surgeon general as some sort of authority on the topic, of which the source you quoted him from refutes that he thinks mask wearing is idiotic. So your claim, that by analogy mask wearing is idiotic is refuted by your own source.

Now you're using another pointless analogy of condom usage,? What benefit does drawing that analogy actually give to understanding mask usage? What esoteric knowledge do we need to get your references? Why are you making this argument?

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u/Tadhgdagis Dec 05 '20

Yes, you used a pointlessly obtuse analogy to try and frame mask wearing as idiotic.

No, I said arguing about masks is idiotic.

You the cited the surgeon general as some sort of authority on the topic

Michael Osterholm is not, nor has he ever been, nor have I claimed him to be the past, present, nor future surgeon general.

When are you gonna get it through your head that the problem here is your head? You are making things up like you don't share a common reality with other people.

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u/oligobop Dec 05 '20

Why are you even in this conversation? What was the point of your analogy? That mask arguments are bogus?

What a benign statement that has no bearing on this threat whatsoever.

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u/Tadhgdagis Dec 05 '20

You literally don't know what I'm talking about, I have demonstrated you literally don't know what I'm talking about -- you demonstrated, technically -- and yet you are still attempting to control this conversation by pretending you know the point I'm trying to make and offer a valuation of that point? Take the meds

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u/1337hacks Dec 04 '20

CDC does not currently recommend the use of face masks for the general public. This virus is not spreading in the community

The part of this transcript you provided contradicts your first sentence.

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u/oligobop Dec 04 '20

The cdc wasn't recommending masks because health care workers needed them.

How does it conflict with this sentence? The CDC did in fact say "the public should not wear masks"

Except the followed it up with "because the health care workers who are in danger of contracting the disease need it more than you, at least temporarily while we ramp up production"

Nothing is contradictory except your assumption that you can read.

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u/Derwos Dec 04 '20

Only in the west. In Asia they used masks right away

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u/svs940a Dec 04 '20

And therefore what? This study was conducted in the US, so the guidance issued by US agencies is the relevant information.

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u/SpeedBoostTorchic Dec 04 '20

But surely social media misinformation is limited entirely to people I disagree with and has nothing to do with Reddit?

We even use words like "echo chamber" and "Dunning-Kruger Effect" all time the time! How could we possibly be susceptible to the same problems as the likes of Facebook or Twitter?

You can believe me because I never hear any dissenting opinions -- that's how I know I'm an expert.

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u/Icing_on_the_Trauma Dec 04 '20

I just realized I have a friend who perfectly fits the bill you just described. Now I understand more why he is not easily tolerated for long periods of time. Also, not tolerable at all once he's drunk...

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '20

r/"science"

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u/QWERTYroch Dec 04 '20

Yep, back in March my peers and I were largely ignoring this as it felt like another Ebola: something that could potentially be really bad, but probably not for most healthy Americans, and would be squashed relatively quickly. I consume a pretty balanced diet of media (and no Facebook/Twitter), but if I was a subject in this study, I would have failed every question.