What an Aging Population Means for the Future of the Internet

This massive demographic shift is occurring when this age group is moving online and onto Facebook in droves, deeply struggling with digital literacy, and being targeted by a wide range of online bad actors who try to feed them fake news, infect their devices with malware, and steal their money in scams. Jestin Coler, who ran a network of websites that published completely false material about science, politics, and other topics, told BuzzFeed News that baby boomers were a key demographic for his sites because they “are absolutely more likely to share and consume fake news online, particularly on Facebook.” “People over 60 or 65 seem to be especially prone to consuming and sharing fake news and online misinformation more generally,” Brendan Nyhan, a political science professor at the University of Michigan and a coauthor of one of the studies, told BuzzFeed News.

Source: www.buzzfeednews.com