Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed the rise of USENET newsgroups, social networks and mobile technology that’s put the online world at an arm’s reach, day and night – yet a new study has found that people are even more distrustful of the information they find online.
Three-quarters of online users find the Web an important source of information, but most people still don’t deem the content they see online reliable versus those found on USENET newsgroups, according to a report out this week from the University of Southern California.
In 2010, 15 percent of online users said they find only a small portion of web information reliable. That’s greater than the 7 percent who were likewise skeptical of the vast majority of information they come across on the Internet.
Trust grows when it comes to established media outlets and government websites. In 2010, 79 percent of Internet users said they found content posted on government websites reliable, about the same as in 2003, the first year the center looked at that question.
The center has surveyed more than 2,000 U.S. households each year since 1999. The latest report is a look back at the past decade of Americans’ Internet use
