Fake news, health literacy, and misinformed patients: The fate of scientific facts in the era of digital medicine

Abstract

This article reviews and advances existing literature concerning the fate of scientific facts in the era of digital medicine. Using data from Morning Consult and Pew Research Center, I performed analyses and made estimates regarding percentage of online news consumers who get news online from news organizations/people they are close with/ people they are not particularly close with often/sometimes (of those who get news online from each, percentage who say that the news they get from news organizations/people they are close with/people they are not particularly close with is very/somewhat near to their interests), percentage of each social networking website’s users who ever get news on the site, percentage of social media news consumers who click on links to news stories/“like” news stories/share or repost news stories/comment on news stories/post links to news stories themselves/discuss issues in the news on the site/post their own photos or videos of a news event, percentage of news instances through each pathway in which a/no follow-up action was taken, percentage of Facebook news consumers who regularly see news on Facebook about entertainment/people and events in their communities/sports/national government and politics/crime/health and medicine/local government and politics/local weather and traffic/international news/science and technology/business, and percentage of U.S. adults who say they shared a political news story online they later found out/knew at the time was made up.