Social media habits represent one of the most common – and controversial – forms of habitual behavior in contemporary society. This project will investigate whether and how social media habits are linked to the spread of misinformation. Specifically, this research aims at understanding whether there are habits that can be identified within social media data that are unique to misinformation spreaders. For example: do these users re-post, reply to, or post content in ways that seem habitual — as opposed to behaviors based on the rewards received from other users (e.g., likes, re-posting)? To perform this analysis, students will closely examine social media data across multiple platforms. The goal of this project will be to develop a model which can infer habit-based vs. non-habitual processes from existing user data, and identify how these processes play a role in the spread of misinformation. This project will be in collaboration with the USC Department of Psychology.
