ArticleUniversal access in the information society2022
Better safe than sorry: a study on older adults' credibility judgments and spreading of health misinformation.
Article in Universal access in the information society, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Older adults and online health misinformation: a systematic literature review.BMC psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Can social media videos meet patients' information needs for benign prostatic hyperplasia? A repeated cross-sectional study.BMC urology · 2026Article
- Routine immunization in older adults beyond COVID-19: a qualitative analysis of experiences, perceived barriers and facilitators, and recommendations for improvement.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- The dose-response relationship between light physical activity and electronic health literacy among community-dwelling older adults.BMC public health · 2026Article
- AI virtual digital human influencers vs. human influencers: the impact of health short videos on older adults' cognition and attitude.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Health promotion in the algorithmic age: recognizing the information environment as a determinant of health.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- South Korea's Health Misinformation Response during COVID-19: A Narrative-Thematic Analysis.Asian bioethics review · 2025Article
- Sharing behaviors of older adults in online health information: A systematic literature review.Journal of education and health promotion · 2025Review
- Correcting fake news headlines after repeated exposure: memory and belief accuracy in younger and older adults.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media-Challenges and Mitigation Before, During, and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Literature Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Exploring the relationship between older adults' online health information seeking, negative emotions and prevention behaviors in the pandemic context: a two-wave longitudinal study.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The online world is flooded with misinformation that puts older adults at risk, especially the misinformation about health and wellness. To understand older adults' vulnerability to online misinformation, this study examines how eye-catching headlines and emotional images impact their credibility judgments and spreading of health misinformation. Fifty-nine older adults aged between 58 and 83 years participated in this experiment. Firstly, participants intuitively chose an article for further reading among a bunch of headlines. Then they viewed the emotional images. Finally, they judged the credibility of health articles and decided whether to share these articles. On average, participants only successfully judged 41.38% of health articles. Attractive headlines not only attracted participants' clicks at first glance but also increased their credibility judgments on the content of health misinformation. Although participants were more willing to share an article they believed than not, 62.5% of the articles they want to share were falsehoods. Older adults in this study were notified of possible falsehoods in advance and were given enough time to discern misinformation before sharing. However, these efforts neither lead to a high judgment accuracy nor a high quality of information that they wanted to share. That may be on account of eye-catching headlines which misled participants into believing health misinformation. Besides, the most older adults in this study may follow the "better safe than sorry" principle when confronted with health misinformation, that is to say they would rather trust the misinformation to avoid health risks than doubt it.
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