Pew Research Center

According to a new survey by Pew Research Center, most Americans suspect that made-up news is having an impact. About two-in-three US adults (64%) say fabricated news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current issues and events. This sense is shared widely across incomes, education levels, partisan affiliations and most other demographic characteristics.

Though they sense these stories are spreading confusion, Americans express a fair amount of confidence in their own ability to detect fake news, with about four-in-ten (39%) feeling very confident that they can recognize news that is fabricated and another 45% feeling somewhat confident. Overall, about a third (32%) of Americans say they often see political news stories online that are made up.

Since the 1970s, the term “information overload” has captured society’s anxiety about the growth in the production of information having potentially bad consequences for people as they struggle to cope with seemingly constant streams of messages and images. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that, for the most part, the large majority of Americans do not feel that information overload is a problem for them.

Some 20% say they feel overloaded by information, a decline from the 27% figure from a decade ago, while 77% say they like having so much information at their fingertips. Two-thirds (67%) say that having more information at their disposals actually helps to simplify their lives. The survey shows that most Americans are comfortable with their abilities to cope with information flows in their day-to-day lives. Moreover, those who own more devices are also the ones who feel more on top of the data and media flows in their lives. Those who are more likely to feel information overload have less technology and are poorer, less well-educated and older.

A substantial majority of US voters – 84% – followed along as results trickled in on election night, and television was by far their most common way of tracking returns. Nearly nine-in-ten of those who followed returns (88%) did so on TV, while 48% used online platforms. About one-in-five (21%) used social networks such as Twitter or Facebook, according to a Pew Research Center post-election survey. The share of voters who tracked election returns on TV was similar to the share who did so during the last presidential election (92% in 2012, 88% this year). On the other hand, digital sources have gained ground. The share of voters who followed returns online increased by 14 percentage points since 2012 (from 34% to 48%), while the share who tracked results using a social networking site more than doubled (from 8% to 21%).

When voters are asked to grade the candidates, parties and press on how they conducted themselves during the presidential campaign, they award the lowest grades for nearly all involved since the quadrennial post-election surveys began in 1988. A 57% majority of voters say news organizations had too much influence on the outcome of 2016’s presidential election, while 13% say the press had too little influence and 27% say the press had the right amount of influence.

The share saying news organizations had too much influence on the outcome of the presidential election is the highest it has been since 2000, while the share of those saying the press had about the right amount of influence is the lowest in Pew Research Center polling going back to 1992. About four-in-ten voters (39%) say the press was too tough in the way it covered Donald Trump’s campaign, while 32% say it was fair and 27% say it was too easy. Overall, voters were more likely to say the press was too easy on Hillary Clinton: 45% say this, while 21% say it was too tough on her and 33% say it was fair. That the press is viewed by voters as having been easier on Clinton and harder on Trump is largely the result of higher levels of press criticism among Trump voters than Clinton voters: About three-quarters of Trump voters say both that the press was too tough on him (74%) and too easy on her (78%). By contrast, Clinton voters are roughly as likely to say the press treated Trump fairly as they are to say it was too easy on him (49% vs. 44%). And while 37% of Clinton voters say the press was too tough on their candidate, half (50%) say she was treated fairly.

A key question that news organizations face, particularly during intense periods like election years, is to what degree journalists should present the facts with some interpretation, giving their audience guidance in navigating all the information that comes at them. A majority of US adults (59%) reject the idea of adding interpretation, saying that the news media should present the facts alone, a recent Pew Research Center survey found. Four-in-ten favor adding some interpretation to the facts.

The survey of 4,132 adults on the Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel was conducted Sept. 27-Oct. 10, before Election Day. Although the public prefers the news media to present “just the facts,” they may not even agree on what the facts are. In the same survey, 81% of registered voters said that most supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump not only disagree over plans and policies, but also disagree on basic facts.

From neighborhood handymen to freelance computer programmers, Americans have long taken on piecemeal work in lieu of (or in addition to) traditional salaried employment. But today a variety of apps and online platforms are making it easier than ever for people to connect with customers who might like to hire them to do any number of jobs – from performing various types of online tasks to driving for ride-hailing services or cleaning someone’s home. These platforms also allow users to earn money in a range of other ways, such as sharing their possessions with others or selling their used goods or personal creations.

In the context of gig employment, nearly one-in-ten Americans (8%) have earned money in the last year using digital platforms to take on a job or task. Meanwhile, nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) have earned money in the last year by selling something online, while 1% have rented out their properties on a home-sharing site. Adding up everyone who has performed at least one of these three activities, some 24% of American adults have earned money in the “platform economy” over the last year. The extra income they make is a luxury for some, but a necessity for others.

Being interviewed by a local journalist provides an opportunity to have a voice in the civic life and local news ecosystem of one’s community. But it remains a relatively rare experience, as only about a quarter of US adults (26%) say they have ever done so. And among those who have, not everyone’s voice is equally likely to be heard.

Whites, as well as college graduates and those with higher incomes, are more likely than nonwhites to have spoken with or been interviewed by a local journalist, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. About three-in-ten whites (29%) say they have ever spoken with or been interviewed by a local journalist or reporter, compared with 19% of nonwhites. (Nonwhite includes all racial and ethnic groups except non-Hispanic white.) This difference is particularly striking given that nonwhites generally are more engaged consumers of local news than whites. For instance, while 43% of nonwhites follow local news very closely, only a third of whites say the same – a similar pattern to what we found in our 2015 study of local news habits in three cities.

A national survey of 1,520 adults conducted March 7-April 4, 2016, finds that Facebook continues to be America’s most popular social networking platform by a substantial margin: Nearly eight-in-ten online Americans (79%) now use Facebook, more than double the share that uses Twitter (24%), Pinterest (31%), Instagram (32%) or LinkedIn (29%).

On a total population basis (accounting for Americans who do not use the Internet at all), that means that 68% of all US adults are Facebook users, while 28% use Instagram, 26% use Pinterest, 25% use LinkedIn and 21% use Twitter. Thanks in part to the growing number of older adults who are joining the site, Facebook use appears to be on the rise: The share of online adults who report using Facebook has increased by 7 percentage points compared with a Pew Research Center survey conducted at a similar point in 2015. In addition, the share of Facebook users who check in daily has increased slightly in the past year: 76% of Americans who use Facebook now report that they visit the site on a daily basis, up from 70% in 2015.

As Election Day unfolds, here are five charts that highlight how politically polarized the nation has become — and how most Americans expect it to remain that way, regardless of who wins.

1. Even before the current campaign began, the American public had grown more ideologically polarized along partisan lines, as Pew Research Center documented in a major study.
2. Republicans and Democrats have grown increasingly negative in their evaluations of presidents representing the other party.
3. Demographic changes have reshaped both party coalitions over the past quarter century, pushing them further apart.
4. Supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump differ sharply in their views of life in the U.S. today compared with the past. In August, 81% of Trump supporters said life in America today is worse for people like them than it was 50 years ago, compared with just 11% who said it is better. Among Clinton supporters, about one-in-five (19%) said life is worse, compared with nearly six-in-ten (59%) who said it is better.
5. Voters are skeptical that either Clinton or Trump will repair the country’s political divisions.

Politics on social media – as in real life – isn’t always pretty. But despite the downsides, exposure to the range of new ideas and viewpoints that many social media users encounter can occasionally cause people to change their minds about political issues or candidates.

Overall, 20% of social media users say they’ve modified their stance on a social or political issue because of material they saw on social media, and 17% say social media has helped to change their views about a specific political candidate. Among social media users, Democrats – and liberal Democrats in particular – are a bit more likely than Republicans to say they have ever modified their views on a social or political issue, or on a particular political candidate, because of something they saw on social media. (Democrats and Republicans include independents and nonpartisans who “lean” toward these parties.) In addition to asking whether they had changed their minds in this way due to social media content, our survey also asked respondents to tell us – in their own words – about a recent time this happened to them. And when we coded their answers, we found a number of distinct themes that emerged in the issues that came to mind.