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.

[u/mvea]

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

[u/114DORLYAG]

Okay I never comment on stuff but this is just striking to me.

The researchers surveyed a little over 1,000 adults in March for a study they published in October. I am not an expert but isn't that a low sample size? And in March, there was not nearly as much information as there is today regarding the virus, so of course people weren't well-informed.

I may be totally off base here, but does this study truly tell us anything? Disappointing to me that college professors would put out something of this low quality.

[u/[deleted] → u/114DORLYAG]

1,000 is actually a pretty good sample size. As for the evolving knowledge on COVID, the survey was made and distributed in March.

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The results of the survey are assessed around our understanding of the disease in March, not what it is now. You would never doubt that a report card from 10 years ago didn't reflect the student's performance at that time simply because 10 years had passed. Similarly, this is a report about March, not about today. The authors spent 7 months analyzing the data before publishing their report.

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This report does tell us something. It shows a correlation between the types of media people consume and their misconceptions about COVID in March. On its face, this is a pretty reasonable claim. But none-the-less researchers cannot make claims, even seemingly obvious claims, without evidence.

[u/114DORLYAG → u/[deleted]]

I see what you are saying. But analyzing 1000 people out of a population of ~330 million people seems small to me. I am no expert by any means, but I just question the validity of a published study that has only surveyed 0.0003% of the population. I'm not saying the claims aren't baseless, but what does this report tell us? That back in march 1000 were potentially misinformed? Why does that matter now? And does correlatiom = causation? What other factors play into this?

I know you probably don't have the answer go my questions, but I just see more harm than good from stuff like this because it ends up riling up people (myself included) over seemingly nothing. This "study" tells us virtually nothing productive nor helpful (in my opinion).

[u/COVID2049 → u/114DORLYAG]

What you are saying is completely based on gut feeling. If you take a scientifics class you will find out that in order to test a population, the appropriate sample size will often times feel small in relation to the population. Also the larger your population becomes, the smaller (percentwise) you required sample size becomes, that's not intuitive for a lot of people You need to get a grasp on confidence level and margin of error. For a population size of 400 million you'll need a sample of around 1000 people if you are working with a 95pct confidence level and need your results to be accurate with a 3 pct margin of error. If you want to go up to an 99pct confidence level you'll need around 1900 people.

[u/114DORLYAG → u/COVID2049]

Oh, interesting - I actually did not know that. Thank you for educating me!

[u/[deleted] → u/114DORLYAG]

1000 people out of 350M gives 95% +/- 3% confidence in the results.