Sharing Facts
Our data reveals that around four in 10 globally have learnt a new fact by speaking to family, friends, or trusted colleagues. But without knowledge of where our family, friends, or colleagues source their information from, it is difficult to determine if what we share with each other is true.
Three in four said the pandemic has made them more cautious about what is true
Across our markets, we asked which sources people had shared or repeated information from as fact in the last five years. The internet came out on top, with 48% citing Google and other search engines and 44% citing social media, compared with 18% repeating what they had read in an academic journal and 27% an educational textbook or website—even with increased exposure to academic research during the pandemic.
Despite increased trust in the experts, the decline of more traditional sources for fact-finding—such as encyclopaedias—is clearly reflected in the places we share information from. Established news sources, including news websites, and WhatsApp also ranked highly at 32% and 31% respectively.
WhatsApp is a more common source of information in India and South Africa, with over half (53%) in India sharing information from the platform as fact and 46% in South Africa, compared to one in 10 in the UK and US (14% UK;12% US).
When it comes to social media, figures varied globally. In the UK, 18% of people have shared information from social platforms as fact, while the US also falls below the global average at 35%. This figure rises to over half in Mexico (59%), India (56%), and South Africa (52%).
The top sources to share information from:
Google and other search engines
Social Media
Established news sources
Across the markets, when it comes to sharing information, there were varying levels of confidence in the following sources:
Google and other search engines
Wikipedia
Social media
Three quarters were confident that information they shared from social media was true
What does this mean for the future and how we teach the next generation?
The ability to know what sources we can trust is crucial for understanding how we teach our children about the changing world and pass information down to future generations.
When we asked respondents what sources they rely on to teach their children factual information, almost half cited Google and other search engines (49%). Whilst globally only two in 10 parents used social media and one in 10 WhatsApp, these figures rose to around one third in India at 35% and 29% respectively.
Given that our research shows trust in social media is higher amongst Generation Z, there is a likelihood that, as many become parents in the future, this proportion could rise.
It also emerged that almost the same number of parents rely on teachers (36%) as do on the knowledge they learned growing up (32%). This reflects previous OUP research that found that two-thirds (63%) of UK parents prefer to read their children books they enjoyed in their own childhood, rather than choosing newer titles.24
Overall, when teaching their children factual information, parents rely on the following sources:
1. Google or another search engines
2. Educational textbooks or websites
3. Teachers / educational institutions
4. Own knowledge, based on what they learned growing up25
25 In India, over a third of parents use Wikipedia (34%) and social media (35%) to teach their children factual information. Parents in South Africa (41%) and Mexico (37%) are the most likely to use libraries to teach their children factual information.