Can you Trust the Tweets on the Study on Trust? Not With That Headline…

The headline writers of a recent Harris Poll “massaged” their reading of their own research, (unintentionally?) creating a perfect case for why people might lack trust in what they are told by anyone via any media (advertising included). All kinds of folks took the bait and posted and re-tweeted the creative reading of a Harris Poll report as indicating that “…90% of young people trust advertising claims…”

Such distortions of the findings in ready to re-tweet form show how Twitter can be either a catalyst for communication, or a culprit in the declining value of context.

The “trust” in this question is the belief that advertising is honest in its claims “at least sometimes”. Re-phrase the question and the big finding here is that only 10% of 18-34 year old Americans believe that advertising is never honest, sharing this view with 14% of respondents 35-44, and 16% of those 45-54, and 19%(!) of those 55+. It turns out that the very cynical among us are likely to be older…

To be fair, Harris did include the two meaningful findings in their lead: 1) one in five American adults say they trust that advertising is honest in its claims all or most of the time, and 2) there is no consensus on who is trusted to regulate advertising industry.

These two key points seem interesting to talk about, and likely I will, but first I just wanted to chide the twitter influencers who parroted a technically true but ultimately misleading read of the results and started a meme of misreading these results. The poor folks who run into that interpretation will now go around believing that the young are gullible, when they’re the ones swallowing what should not be trusted simply because they saw it from someone they trust on Twitter, and because with Twitter, it’s apparently okay to pass along information you haven’t confirmed yourself.