News sharing on Facebook makes people smarter

Washington, Jan 16: Sharing news on social media sites like Facebook can help you get on top of it as well as stay connected longer than people who casually read the news and scroll down, says a researcher. "Sharing and discussing news content on social media sites like Facebook can actually drive greater involvement with news and information," said S. Shyam Sundar, professor of communications and co-director of the media effects research laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. There seems to be growing concern that young people may be becoming more disengaged, particularly from mainstream media sources and be more out-of-touch. For this, the researchers studied whether the way Facebook users shared links to news stories with their friends affected how involved they remained with the stories. A total of 265 active Facebook users with a median of 400 friends each took part in the study. Researchers monitored the posts as well as the reactions to their posts.