alt Hacker NewsThis is something ive started to notice, the older generation becoming victims to doomscrolling, my dad being one of them. What makes it worst is that unlike kids who group in the social media world, and therefore have some ability of discerning between whats real and fake, the older gen are so gullible when it comes to fake news, propaganda, and ai generated content.
Not only that but they then go on to spread this false news among there whatsapp friends
Older generations have an implicit trust for what is on screen because they grew up in an era where getting something on screen was not easy, and thus had an implied credibility.
Take advertising as an example. Before Google Ads and the so-called democratization of advertising, it was expensive, and you didn't get an ad on a TV program or a national publication without some level of quality and/or trust behind your product.
Similarly, content was not easy to produce and certainly not cheap to get in front of eyeballs in the limited medium that was television. People were selective in what they watched so in order to be watched it needed to meet a minimum threshold for quality.
These days however, the barrier to entry for advertising and content are so low that any implicit trust should be ridiculous. Unfortunately for our parents and grandparents however, that is what they know - and old habits die hard.