New Scientist - USA (2019-11-30)

16 | New Scientist | 30 November 2019

THERE may be a simple solution

to stop people sharing incorrect

information online: just ask them

to think about accuracy.

Gordon Pennycook at the

University of Regina in Canada

and his colleagues presented more

than 2500 people from the US with

real headlines and images taken

either from mainstream news

stories or from a cache of stories

that had been debunked by

independent fact-checkers.

Some participants were asked

to indicate if they would consider

sharing the headlines on social

media. Many said they would, and

this wasn’t influenced by whether

the headlines were true or not.

In a follow-up study, the team

asked another group of people to

judge the accuracy of headlines

before asking them whether they

would consider sharing them on

social media. People who were

given this accuracy prompt were

significantly less likely to say they

would share false headlines.

Building on this second

finding, the researchers explored

whether Twitter users could be

encouraged not to share stories

that they suspect to be fake.

The researchers used Twitter

bots to message 5500 users who

had shared news from potentially

misleading websites. They asked

these people to rate the accuracy

of a non-political headline.

Afterwards, the team measured

the trustworthiness of the news

shared by these users, with a

trustworthiness scale developed

by independent fact-checkers.

The team found that the news

the Twitter users shared in the

24 hours after they received the

message was 3.5 per cent more

trustworthy than the news shared

before they had been contacted

(psyarxiv.com/3n9u8).

This suggests people are more

likely to spread misinformation

because they aren’t thinking

about accuracy, says Pennycook.

He would like to partner with

social media platforms to scale

up the experiment. ❚

Social media

How to fight the spread of fake news

News

3.5%

Rise in trustworthiness of shared

news when we consider accuracy Donna Lu

OUR health outcomes at older

ages may be changing: people

who are 70 today feel as healthy

as 65-year-olds did a few decades

ago, according to the UK’s official

statistics authority.

The idea that turning 65 marks

the beginning of old age is already

seen as outdated in the world of

work, with the UK’s state pension

age looking set to rise to 68 by

the end of the 2030s. But the

UK’s Office for National Statistics

(ONS) says it now appears that the

notion is outmoded for health

and longevity too.

The ONS found that levels of

poor health for men aged 70 today

were about the same as those for a

65-year-old man in 1997. A 70-year-

old woman today is on a par with

a woman aged 65 in 1981.

Today’s 70-year-olds also have a

remaining life expectancy similar

to that of a 65-year-old several

decades ago. A 70-year-old man in

2017 is considered to have 15 years

left to live on average, the same as

a 65-year-old man had in 1997. For

women aged 70, remaining life

expectancy is 17 years, equivalent

to a 65-year-old woman in 1981.

The ONS says these findings

imply that 70 really can be thought

of as the new 65 when it comes

to life expectancy and health.

“The data is believable, it

reflects what we see in the clinic,”

says Janet Lord at the University

of Birmingham, UK. She says

there are three possible reasons

why large health improvements

have been seen, particularly for

men, in recent decades: the

introduction of new drugs to treat

hypertension, reduced levels of

smoking and the introduction

of lipid-lowering statins.

The ONS used two long-running

surveys to measure health. One

asked people to rate their general

health, while the other asked

whether they had a long-term

illness and, if so, whether it

reduced their ability to do daily

activities. On average, 45 per cent

of people aged 65 to 85 reported

poor general health in 1981, which

fell to 39 per cent by 2017.

“It’s not surprising that

there have been increases

in life expectancy, but I was

pleasantly surprised about the

improvements in terms of health,”

says João Pedro de Magalhães at

the University of Liverpool, UK.

“This means that people are not

only living longer but they are

living longer healthier, which

is what we all want.”

One caveat is that the

measure of health was self-

reported by people rather than

being assessed by a doctor, says

Lorna Harries at the University

of Exeter, UK. “People’s perception

of how healthy they are can

differ quite a lot from person

to person. Something relatively

minor for one person may be

perceived to have a big impact

by someone else.”  ❚

Ageing

Adam Vaughan

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70 is the new 65 for health

and life expectancy in the UK

Older people in the

UK seem to be staying

healthier for longer