Social media is stunningly unpopular among Americans, apparently.
A new survey by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News shows 57 percent of Americans believe “social media does more to divide us.”
And 82 percent say “social media does more to waste our time.”
NBC reported Micah Roberts, a pollster from Public Opinion Strategies, which conducted the survey, said, “Social media – and Facebook, in particular – have some serious issues in this poll.”
And regarding President Trump’s well-known accusation that establishment news media spreads “fake news”?
It’s really a big problem for social media, the poll revealed.
Fifty-five percent of respondents say “social media does more to spread lies and falsehoods” and 61 percent believe “social media does more to spread unfair attacks and rumors against public figures and corporations.”
“What’s more, six-in-10 Americans say they don’t trust Facebook at all to protect their personal information, the poll finds.”
Roberts said that if America “was giving social media a Yelp review, a majority would give it zero stars.”
The results are from interviews with 1,000 adults, including 450 will cell phone access only, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. It was taken March 23-27.
Only 35 percent believe social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook do more to bring the nation together, and only 31 percent say social media does more to spread news and information.
“The negative attitudes about social media are shared by Democrats, Republicans, men, women, urban residents and rural ones,” the NBC report said. “One variable, however, is age – with younger poll respondents less likely to believe that social media divides the country and spreads unfair attacks and rumors.
“And by a 74 percent-to-23 percent margin, respondents say that social media companies collecting users’ personal data to allow advertisers to target them is not an acceptable tradeoff for free or lower-cost services,” NBC said.
