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Online health information by experts more credible than blogs | | People are more likely to believe and use information on a website from an identified source than that coming from a layperson, blog or a homepage, suggests a study. Principal
investigator Yifeng Hu, assistant professor of communications, College of New
Jersey, Ewing, N.J., and colleague S. Shyam Sundar, distinguished professor of
communications, Penn State, examined the relative importance of different online
sources and how people evaluate and act on online health information. Sundar said:
"Most people look for health information online by keying disease symptoms into
various search engines. But the results of that search could range from experts
at the Mayo Clinic to somebody's personal blog." Sundar added: "We wanted to find
out if users differentiate between various sources of online information and how
that choice impacts their decisions. The health topics were controversial enough
to raise questions of credibility among readers." Researchers found that screenshots
of both health topics were seen as significantly more reliable when attributed
to a doctor and featured on a website rather than on a blog, individual homepage
or a bulletin board. Sundar said: "It tells us that young people are actually
differentiating between different online sources when evaluating health information
on the Internet." The study was published in the Communication Research. |
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