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just put down the phone already Belief in fake news linked to problematic social media use People with high score on problematic social media use are more likely to like and share fake news. Jennifer Ouellette – May 8, 2025 10:54 am | 21 Credit: Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg / Getty Images Credit: Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg / Getty Images Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Minimize to nav The vast majority of people these days use some form of social media, but some develop what's known as problematic social media use (PSMU). It's not yet deemed a clinical addiction, but it does share some symptoms with addiction and substance abuse disorders. And according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE, someone who exhibits PSMU is also more likely to believe in—and share—fake news online, contributing to the rampant spread of misinformation that is the bane of the 21st-century Internet. "If someone struggles with a substance dependency, it's the decision-making process in their brain where they have difficulties stopping," co-author Dar Meshi of Michigan State University told Ars. "They take their drug and have a negative outcome: get a DUI or crash their car. Most people learn from a bad outcome and don't do it again, but someone with a substance use disorder continues to do that action." In the case of PSMU, someone might feel bad if they are unable to access social media for an extended period (withdrawal), or their use of social media might lead to losing a job, poor grades, or mental health issues. Meshi specializes in risky decision-making, impulsivity, and PSMU; his co-author and MSU colleague Maria Molina researches misinformation and disinformation. The two were chatting one day, and Meshi mentioned that he'd found in his research that problematic social media users were typically more impulsive and took more risks than average. He thought there might be an interesting link. Perhaps people with PSMU might also be more likely to engage with, or believe in and propagate, online misinformation "because their risk evaluation is a little bit different than a neurotypical person," he said. (Misinformation is fake or false news that is unintentionally distributed; disinformation is when it is intentionally spread, explicitly to deceive.) Their study looked at subjects' propensity to believe fake news by measuring actions, such as clicking on a link or liking, sharing, or commenting on posts. Meshi and Molina recruited 189 college students who completed a questionnaire about their social media habits. PSMU is not yet recognized in the DSM as an official disorder or addiction, which requires a person to exhibit either psychological distress or impairment in daily functioning. But the criteria Meshi uses to assess PSMU is based on the same six core biopsychological components of addiction—for example, withdrawal, tendency to relapse, mood modification (using social media to change one's mood), or tolerance (needing to spend more and more hours on social media to achieve the same psychological rewards). That's why, when designing their survey, "We didn't ask questions like 'How much time are you spending [on social media],'" said Meshi. "There is a correlation between how many drinks someone is having and how severe their alcohol use disorder is. But you wouldn't diagnose someone by how many drinks they're having because they could still be functioning fine or not have an impairment in their daily functioning or psychological distress, so we use these other six criteria to assess it." Next, the researchers presented subjects with 20 non-political news stories in the form of social media posts. Ten were real and 10 were fake, and the subjects answered seven questions about each article. The first three asked them to rate to what extent they thought the stories were accurate, authentic, or believable. The last four were designed to measure potential engagement by rating how likely they were to click on a link or like, comment on, or share each news story. Meshi and Molina also created attention checks to make sure participants were not just rapidly clicking buttons without really thinking about their responses. Hypothesis confirmed Subjects who showed more symptoms of PSMU were far more likely to believe fake news was true. They were also more likely to interact with news posts, whether they were fake or genuine, and were much more likely to click on fake news posts. And the greater the PSMU score, the more likely subjects indicated their likelihood of sharing fake news posts, thereby contributing to the propagation of online misinformation. Meshi hopes the findings will help therapists identify PSMU and look for a possible corresponding vulnerability to misinformation or conspiracy theories. "This was just a first step," said Meshi. "No one had ever looked at this relationship before, so we investigated it. In follow-up studies, we will try to understand the [underlying] mechanism. I'm a neuroscientist by training, and my research is on the reward system of the brain, which is involved in decision-making and evaluation of risk and how much value is there and how much you discount the value with the risk. So I would imagine that the processing in brain regions might be a little bit different [in people with PSMU], and that could result in this behavior." Meshi does not vilify social media use in general, despite its problematic aspects. "Every technology that's been introduced into our society has kind of been vilified at one point or the other," said Meshi. "If you go back and look at newspapers, there are cartoons about people not sleeping and having wide eyes because of light bulbs," he said. "Cars, airplanes—'it's not natural to travel so quickly.' I like to express not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are some genuine benefits to social media. People are lonely, and it's sometimes hard to connect with people in today's busy world, especially older adults whose social networks are shrinking, as people move all over the country or even all over the world with globalization. "It's just like any type of thing that you can develop a problematic relationship to, like drinking, for example," he added. "You might say, it's good to go out and have a drink with dinner and socialize. It loosens things up and you enjoy the socializing a little bit more. But if you don't do that in moderation, then it can cause problems in your life. I recommend the same type of attitude toward social media. Use it for the good stuff. But if you notice it's causing a problem, then it might be time to scale back and use it more in moderation." DOI: PLoS ONE, 2025. 10.1371/journal.pone.0321361  (About DOIs). Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 21 Comments