Sharing This Might Make You Feel Smarter... Even If You Don’t Read It

KhurramNaveed_CFFP

I recently read a very interesting study by Ward, Zheng, and Broniarczyk that shows that sharing content on social media, without reading it, can inflate one's sense of knowledge. Why? Sharing signals expertise. Over time, people internalize that behavior and come to believe they know more than they actually do.

Here is what the authors found:

Nearly 40% of shared articles weren’t read at all by the person sharing them.

Yet those people felt more knowledgeable afterward.

This “illusion of knowledge” can affect real-world decisions, like taking bigger financial risks.

And yes, I’m aware of the irony... this is a post about how social media posts make us feel smart. Full paper: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4132814