Hi everyone! Welcome to my fifth and final blog post for my research. If you have not read any of my other posts, I am doing an inquiry project with the question “Has instant access to information made society less informed?” In this post, I am going to be doing my third round of research.
Informed vs exposed
People are exposed to more content than ever before. We see this with the news, social media and just the internet in general. There are positives and negatives about this that we have talked about in the earlier posts, but one thing we need to make clear is that can not confuse exposure to information as learning. (1)
In a recent study, it talked about how quickly people make opinions on certain subjects after watching about 5 videos. I will not explain the whole study they did because it is quite long, but in the end the study shows that early exposure to new or incorrect information may be one of the most powerful forces shaping people’s opinions. (2) This study shows that people may not be getting as educated on the internets they thought they did, and shows that if you are going have access to have access to information like this you should do actual research before stating opinions or jumping to conclusion. Its basically saying we see more, but don’t necessarily learn more.
To kind of add to this, majority of people forget the information they see when scrolling online. Another study was done where two brights 17-year-olds were told to just scroll on social media. They scrolled for about 6 hours, and when asked about their favorite memory from scrolling they couldn’t remember. (3) This study shows that people can’t even remember majority of what they see inline. So, if I come back to the first study we talked about, how can people make opinions after watching roughly 5 videos if they can’t even remember the content they see online.
These studies really show how people are just being exposed and not informed, but that does not mean its just all exposed. We still have pros for fast access to information online. If people do actual research by reading actual confirmed sourced articles and watching proper videos instead of scrolling for hours looking at potential misinformation’s content, then there is actual informant taking place.
Sources:
Green, Robin. “You’d Be Hard-Pressed to Find a Business That Doesn’t Embrace the Idea That “Developing Their People” Is Key Priority. We All Know That People Are Our Most Important Asset – Heck, You Can Find Posters on the Wall of Many Companies That Amplify That Thought.” Linkedin.com, 24 June 2017, www.linkedin.com/pulse/exposure-does-equal-learning-robin-green. Accessed 29 May 2026. (1)
BAUM, CORINNE. “Study Finds Five Social Media Posts May Shape Lasting Opinions.” The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com, The Jerusalem Post, 27 May 2026, www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/mind-and-spirit/article-897515. Accessed 29 May 2026. (2)
Shribman, Matthew J. “How Much Do You Remember from Your Last Social Media Scroll?” Medium, 5 Mar. 2023, matthew-shribman.medium.com/how-much-do-you-remember-from-your-last-social-media-scroll-f7be9cfe0dcc. (3)