Sharing news articles on social media — whether they've actually read them or not — makes people believe they know more about a subject than they actually do, study finds

• Sharing an article on social media may make you believe you're more of an expert on the topic than you are.
• Researchers found just reading a news headline gave study subjects a stronger sense of confidence in a subject.

If you share an article on social media, you might believe you're more of an expert than you actually are.

A series of new studies found that the simple act of sharing an article online — even if you haven't read it — can make people believe they're more knowledgeable about a topic. The research, conducted by three faculty members of the University of Texas's McCombs School of Business and published this past July, investigated how sharing online content affects what people believe they know.

Researchers Dr. Adrian F. Ward, Dr. Jianqing Zheng, and Dr. Susan M. Broniarczyk surveyed a group of 43 male participants and found that 25% reported sharing at least one article on Facebook after reading only a few lines of it, or not reading any of it at all. Only 28% claimed to fully read every article they shared to Facebook. Yet despite this, in a second pilot study of 99 males, the researchers found that people associated sharing information and articles on social media with expertise.

To test the difference between what people actually know — objective knowledge — and what people think they know —subjective knowledge — researchers gave a group of 98 students (52 male and 46 female) articles to read and potentially share. The students had to rate their subjective knowledge of the article first, and then take a test assessing their objective knowledge. Researchers found that sharing the article was linked to higher subjective knowledge scores — even if students didn't read the article.

"Our research shows that this new information-sharing environment may also be transforming the way we understand ourselves," Dr. Adrian Ward, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Texas, told Medical News Today. "When we share information on social media, we aren't just sharing news — we are also sharing an image of who we are and what we know. Our research shows that the signals our behavior sends to others can influence the way we see ourselves; we begin to see ourselves as we believe we are seen by others."

The researchers found that the overconfidence we get by sharing knowledge online appears to not only alter how we think of ourselves but also affect the real-life decisions we make and the relationships we build.

The University of Texas researchers also conducted a separate study in which they gave 300 participants an article on beginners' investing and instructed them to share or not share the article on Facebook. Then, they participated in a retirement planning session with personalized recommendations and, afterward, chose how to allocate $10,000. Researchers found that the people who shared the investing article opted for riskier investments.

It can also impact the health of our discourse, Ward said, by encouraging strong — but fundamentally unsound — opinions.

"People's inflated sense of personal knowledge could lead to interpersonal conflict; if people on both sides of controversial issues are highly confident in their views, but lack [a] deep understanding of the issues," Ward told the outlet, "it may be even more difficult to find common ground." And since people who feel knowledgeable on a topic may be less likely to seek out new or opposing information, divisions can deepen.

The researchers offered a warning to consumers about their online habits, saying frequently sharing information without fully reading or processing it can lead to overconfidence or polarized attitudes "that could eventually hurt their own well-being, their relationships, and their capacity for civil discourse."

Dr. Adrian F. Ward, Dr. Jianqing Zheng, and Dr. Susan M. Broniarczyk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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