An alleged (fake) email from the World Health Organization, a text message (always fake) that a positive has been contacted, an announcement that a new vaccine could ‘cure’ the disease in a few hours.
The web and more are full of ‘scam’ messages on Covid: but it is not the elderly who fall into this type of traps, unlike what one might believe, more than other age groups. Research finds older people are no more likely to respond to these scams than younger or middle-aged ones, despite being the target of scammers. Indeed, they are significantly more wary of the claims conveyed. This is revealed by a research by Cornell University, Scripps College and Claremont Graduate University, published in Frontiers in Psychology.
The study involved 210 participants, including 68 between the ages of 18 and 40, 79 between the ages of 41 and 64, and 63 between the ages of 65 and 84. One of the measurement tools used in this study is the so-called “fake news receptivity scale,” which asks participants to rate the “depth” of impressive-sounding statements such as “good health gives reality to subtle creativity.” unbeknownst to the participants, the statements are created randomly to have an intact syntax, but to be meaningless in the content. “There is a common perception – highlights one of the authors of the research, Julia Nolte – according to which the elderly are at greater risk fall victim to fraud, or are more likely to be directly targeted by scammers. Our study reveals instead that it is important that warnings about Covid-19 scams also reach young adults and middle-aged people “.
(ANSA).
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Source From: Ansa
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