Why resharing on social media could be making you more stupid
Having to think about whether to share a message may cause 'cognitive overload' that interferes with remembering what it says – and also causes lasting negative effects
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Reposting messages on social media makes people stupid, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Cornell and Beijing universities found that the simple act of “retweeting” interfered with people’s understanding of the contents of the message.
Professor Qi Wang, a human development expert at Cornell in the US, said: “Most people don't post original ideas any more. You just share what you read with your friends.
“But they don't realize that sharing has a downside. It may interfere with other things we do.”
Two groups of Chinese students were shown a series of messages on Weibo, a Twitter-like social media platform in China.
One group was then given the choice whether to repost the message or move on to the next one. The other group were not able to retweet.
The students were then tested about the contents of the messages. The group that had to decide whether to repost or not got almost twice as many wrong answers as the students who simply read the messages. The reposters scored particularly badly for messages they chose to share.
The researchers, who published a paper on their work in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour, said the problem could be caused by “cognitive overload” about the decision whether or not to share the message.
The two groups were also given a test to see how well they understood an article from the New Scientist magazine. The group who had been reposting messages performed less well than the others.
“The sharing leads to cognitive overload, and that interferes with the subsequent task,” Professor Wang said.
“In real life when students are surfing online and exchanging information and right after that they go to take a test, they may perform worse.”
The researchers suggested social media platforms could be redesigned to help people understand the contents of messages rather than get caught up in the decision to share them or not.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments