Scientists show how ‘doing your own research’ leads to believing conspiracies — This effect arises because of the quality of information churned out by Google’s search engine::Researchers found that people searching misinformation online risk falling into “data voids” that increase belief in conspiracies.
It’s because the education system is utterly outdated across the world. No digital literacy, media literacy, or health literacy in the curriculum but lots of things you’ll never need and forget to never be useful again within a few months. Studies should investigate things relating to this subject.
It’s also because of the quality of search engine results but both are directly linked, people need to learn how to use search engines etc.
It’s really ironic. When I was growing up our curriculum taught us how to be tech literate and we were stressed on the importance of reliable sources. In high school we discussed the difference between a primary source and a secondary source, and examined how bias could play a role within them.
I think this is a better way to explain the issue. Millennials were taught how to handle information and critically examine it. The boomers who taught us weren’t, and they’ve fallen into the deep spiral.