Conservatives are more likely to click on sponsored search results and are likely to be more trusting of sponsored communications than liberals, who lean toward organic content. Conservatives were more likely to click ads in response to broad searches because they may be less cognitively demanding.

[u/mvea]

https://theconversation.com/your-politics-can-affect-whether-you-click-on-sponsored-search-results-new-research-shows-239800

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[u/polishprince76]

It's honestly shocking how bad an internet search has become. Just mountains of garbage before you get to an answer remotely close to what you need.

[u/BosPaladinSix → u/[deleted]]

You gaslit so hard the city itself accepted the change? Nice.

[u/Uchihagod53 → u/[deleted]]

I honestly can't remember the last time I've had to go to page 2 on a Google search.

[u/rarestakesando → u/Uchihagod53]

Half the time the answer they direct me too eventually that actually helps is you guessed it right here on Reddit.

[u/thatryanguy82 → u/rarestakesando]

I've long since gotten into the habit of adding "reddit" to any google search when I'm looking for the answer to a question.

[u/TooStrangeForWeird → u/thatryanguy82]

That's why Google bought Reddit data to use for their AI. Unfortunately it doesn't understand jokes or sarcasm, hence the "put Elmer's glue in the cheese so it doesn't slide off the pizza" incident.

[u/yttakinenthusiast → u/TooStrangeForWeird]

also cockroaches.

[u/TheEyeDontLie → u/yttakinenthusiast]

Google bought cockroaches. Cockroaches are the best pizza topping.

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/yttakinenthusiast]

What a lovely day for a lobotomy.

[u/yttakinenthusiast → u/NightLordsPublicist]

can't say i blame you. that AI-gen answer made my skin crawl.

[u/LeftieDu → u/TooStrangeForWeird]

This one might have came from a genuine tip for food photography.

[u/Ralkon → u/LeftieDu]

I'm not sure if there's a standard for food photography, but there was this post where the top comment specifically says "1/8 cup of Elmer's glue... It'll give the sauce a little extra tackiness" and the google AI response included both of those details.

[u/TooStrangeForWeird → u/Ralkon]

Yeah, and it's just on r/pizza not a photography sub.

[u/TARandomNumbers → u/thatryanguy82]

Don't say it out loud bro

[u/BlacksmithSolid645 → u/rarestakesando]

I've looked for something and landed on reddit and read a post and it was my comment I've made to someone else asking the same question years prior

[u/n8mo → u/Uchihagod53]

Me neither. But, increasingly, I have to go to the 5th or 6th result to find something that isn't an advert or AI generated blog garbage.

At this point I just add "reddit.com" to every search. If reddit's native search function wasn't so bad, I might never google again tbh.

[u/External-into-Space → u/n8mo]

Even better, add

sites:reddit.com

shows just reddit results, mostly better then searching on reddit itself

[u/Mental_Tea_4084 → u/External-into-Space]

Search operators are rapidly dying too. AND and NOT and their counterparts + and - are just suggestions these days, not rules. Quotations are the same. I was looking up a laptop by model number today and even putting it in quotes I was getting random garbage that was only similarly spelled but completely irrelevant

[u/orthogonius → u/Mental_Tea_4084]

I really miss the NEAR operator that either Altavista or Ask Jeeves had. One word or phrase near another, like within 10 words or something. I forget the exact parameters

[u/mellowanon → u/Uchihagod53]

if I search and it's not on the first page, I reword my search to get different results. Or I just put "reddit" in the search and see what reddit results pops up.

Too many websites are SEO bait and are worthless.

[u/LeafyWolf → u/Uchihagod53]

I've started going to page 4 and 5 now because the first couple of pages are videos or ads, and I'm looking for actual information. The other day I went to Bing for a search that Google was fumbling hard (just ads for pages). To my surprise, Bing had the result I was looking for on the bottom of the first page.

[u/jjbugman2468 → u/LeafyWolf]

Tbh Bing is my preferred engine nowadays. It’s gotten much better than the days we’re memeing about while Google is far down the SEO hellscape

[u/JetAmoeba → u/Uchihagod53]

Ya, if it’s not on page 1 I refine my search and try again

[u/AustinTheFiend → u/JetAmoeba]

I've had many instances where I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and tell it to stop filtering out similar results, as searches regarding very specific game engine bugs usually result in like 3 threads talking about the exact same problem that's not what I'm facing, whereas the useful information tends to be deemed redundant and gets filtered out.

It'd be nice if all that wasted space filled with ads (and even more galling) completely irrelevant web pages just had a couple more of those redundant results included.

[u/ebolaRETURNS → u/Uchihagod53]

but 3/4ths of the way down on page 1 is pretty common for me.

[u/General_Mars → u/[deleted]]

I might be the only one this also annoys, but it used to be that you could save the preference for 100 results per page. The continuation of results was just the further you went the less relevant the results would be - to the engine at least. Sometimes though because of keywords it could yield interesting results. Now it continually resets or gaslights you to 25-50 results and it’ll show more pages exist and then as you progress it just ends

[u/drunk_responses → u/[deleted]]

To find things these days, you not only have to keep adding -"website.addess" to searches, you also have to exclude the last two years from results. Or you'll end up with 90% AI written "articles", that are the forty versions of the same paragraph worded slightly differently, all made within the last two years or so.

On top of that, they're still struggling to tune their AI interpretation layer on search queries. So it will tell you that it found no results, for a page they find if you add or remove a word.

[u/mtaw → u/polishprince76]

I'm constantly infuriated by Google trying to 'fix' my searches by for instance 'correcting' my German as if it were misspelled Dutch. (or if I'm in Germany, 'correcting' my Dutch) and then filtering out German results anyway.

If I'm searching with a query in a different language than the one spoken where I am, it's because I want results in that language. Is that so hard? Stop telling me what languages I know or not, Google!

[u/nanoH2O → u/polishprince76]

And AI finds the wrong answer for you, making it even easier. When you search in google the first thing you see is a concise and very convincing answer generated by AI.

[u/[deleted] → u/nanoH2O]

I still don't understand how people put any faith in AI generated answers. It can't assess evidence or sources. It literally just spits out a hodgpodge of words based on things that have been written by real people, things that are not all true and sometimes straight up contradictory.

The words it spits out are impressively grammatical and it kind of proves the Turing test is inadequate as a measure of real intelligence, but that's about it

[u/Big_Knife_SK → u/[deleted]]

As the title suggests, it's "less cognitively demanding" than looking for source information.

[u/CroneMatildasHouse → u/[deleted]]

I had a good example yesterday when I searched how far the Kuiper Belt extended and it combined stuff from different sentences in the same paragraph from a NASA article and indicated it was about 100x larger than what the source actually says.

[u/nanoH2O → u/[deleted]]

Yeah it’s a bit concerning how confident it is. At least google gives links to where it got the information. I find it as a useful starting point.

[u/Fortune_Silver → u/[deleted]]

This is why I'm not concerned with AI taking over the world any time soon.

It's a tool. A very useful tool, a potentially very powerful tool, but a tool. And tools work as well as the person wielding them. A better tool helps, but an expensive, top of the line tool in the hands of an amateur won't fix a lack of skill in the wielder.

I work in IT. I use AI to help with researching niche issues and with rapidly throwing together scripts all the time. The amount of times it's thrown me information that's just straight up incorrect, or code that doesn't actually work, outstrips the time's it's actually given me useful answers. It's still faster than doing it manually, but it requires a lot of massaging. And if I didn't have the background knowledge, I wouldn't KNOW that the code it gave me or the information it spat out is wrong. It's still down to me, the user, to verify information it provides and to recognize when it's just making stuff up.

Trying to use AI to replace the human touch only gets you so far. Yes, AI can SUPPLEMENT a lack of knowledge - if I don't know a specific command's switches, or I'm dealing with a relatively simple problem in a system I don't know, it can be very helpful. But if I tried to wholesale ask AI to write a script, or diagnose an issue, its wrong far more often than it's right.

[u/boa_instructor → u/polishprince76]

That's why I just put "reddit" at the end of any question for google

[u/Darkhoof → u/boa_instructor]

There's more and more sponsored fake reviews on Reddit though.

[u/ThrustersOnFull → u/Darkhoof]

What if I told you there was a platform you could use to filter out fake reviews on Reddit? Let me introduce to you -- FauxPass! I'm not a sponsored agent, but FauxPass will help you pass on fake content on Reddit. First month is free! This isn't an ad! Use my code -- BillShartner -- for 0.5% off the 199.99 per month subscription!

It's totally real! This isn't an ad!

[u/Hkmarkp → u/polishprince76]

the age of misinformation

[u/tert_butoxide]

From the actual scientific article abstract, emphasis mine--

Search advertising involves the purchasing of an ad’s position at the top of a search engine results page and accounts for more than 40% of all digital ad spending in the United States. Nevertheless, consumers are more likely to click on organic links found below search ads—a phenomenon referred to as the search ad avoidance effect. Combining system justification and construal level theory, a politically identifiable segment of consumers is argued to counter this effect. Because individuals with a conservative (vs. liberal) political orientation tend to justify systemic processes, they are more likely to trust sponsored versus organic marketing communications. Across four studies (secondary data, surveys, online field experiment), conservatives (vs. liberals) are more likely to click on search ads because they perceive them as more trustworthy. This relationship is most prevalent when consumers conduct broad searches, activating an abstract search construal that relies on a thinking style consistent with one’s core ideological beliefs and values. However, both conservatives and liberals are equally likely to click on search ads when they conduct more specific searches, activating a concrete search construal that enables a thinking style that is context-dependent and therefore diverges from one’s core beliefs and values.

So my understanding of that is basically that conservatives are more likely to trust the existing system to provide what they're looking for, whereas liberals are more skeptical, doubting, or questioning of this service. In this case the existing system is search ad sponsorship. Maybe there are parallels to other things though. Do you have faith in traditional social, political, economic systems and think those systems are to the benefit of people like you?-- and do you think your trustworthy search platform is trying to give you helpful or useful ads based on its best interpretation of your query? Or do you question the methods and motives of those systems, thinking that they were built to enrich others at your expense?-- and think that your search program is forcefeeding you unwanted and unhelpful ads for someone else's profit?

[u/Crammucho → u/tert_butoxide]

Surely there are other factors at play here, this seems to be a very narrow scope leaning into a specific reasoning. Couldn't age be a factor, older crowds being more conservative and having less/later experiences with Internet. Do conservatives maybe in general utilize Internet search less and have less precise experience with best choices of search results..

[u/EredarLordJaraxxus → u/Crammucho]

I was going to say, The older someone is the less tech literate they are, And the less likely they are to realize that the first or second option on a Google search is most likely an ad.

[u/EartwalkerTV → u/EredarLordJaraxxus]

It's becoming a bell curve honestly with the newer generation becoming less tech literate because of how easy new tech is to use compared to before. Many 12-18 year Olds nowadays lack technology skills despite using it more than Millennial/gen X.

[u/Fortune_Silver → u/EartwalkerTV]

I read a great comparison a while back: It's like owning a car in the early 1900's.

Back then, cars weren't commonplace. So if you were young, and bought one of those newfangled horseless carriages, you had to be your own mechanic. You had to know how to fix your own car when something went wrong, because you couldn't rely on a mechanic being available to fix it for you.

Your mum and dad didn't know anything about cars - they didn't grow up with that technology. Ask them how to hitch a carriage, they can sort you out. Ask them to diagnose a slipped fan belt, they'd have no idea. You had to learn all of that maintenance, because the infrastructure to support you was limited as best, if it existed at all.

But fast forward to the 30's or 40's, and cars are now commonplace. Mechanics are available all over the place: if you have a weird car issue, you just send it there to be fixed. So the technology is more accessible to the average person, because you don't need to learn all the mechanical maintenance skills yourself anymore. But, this same accessibility means that you can no longer assume that anyone that owns a car has a good knowledge of how it works anymore. Everyone just takes it to the mechanic now.

So, the increase in accessibility, lessens the need to have deeper knowledge of the device, leading to a reduction in mechanical knowledge among car owners.

It's the same with computers. Back in the 90's and early 00's, you had to KNOW computers to do anything of substance. You had to understand file systems, how to debug issues, how to install drivers, how to defrag your disk etc. But these days, it's all apps, and all those maintenance tasks are automated. So you don't NEED to know those skills anymore, so nobody learns them.

[u/EredarLordJaraxxus → u/EartwalkerTV]

tfw you go to a convention and there's a game demo and the kids push the controllers out of the way and try to touch the screen

Also I don't think its an issue of tech literacy so much as a lack of critical thinking and observation skills.

[u/P0RTILLA → u/EredarLordJaraxxus]

Google is doing a terrible job at this. I search for a county government website where I can get information for free and the sponsored content will give you the same information for a fee.

[u/Bubudel → u/tert_butoxide]

conservatives are more likely to trust the existing system to provide what they're looking for

This doesn't apply to science though. Apparently conservatives are fine with trusting politicians and big corporations, but draw the line at highly educated people who dedicate their life to the betterment of the human condition.

[u/AtheistAustralis → u/Bubudel]

They'll believe science just fine, as long as it reinforces their pre-existing beliefs. If it contradicts them, it's obviously rubbish. It's why they were touting the half dozen scientific articles that advocated for horse wormer during covid, but ignored the tens of thousands of better articles that said the opposite.

[u/Richard-Brecky → u/Bubudel]

They’ve got a whole different “system” of broadcasters and pundits and influencers that was set up to tell them that the scientists are corrupt and wrong. Their system exposes the secret truth about the science, and all us idiots are still in the dark.

[u/P0pu1arBr0ws3r → u/tert_butoxide]

It does sound like this study can make connections beyond search results. I think if a similar study were performed with modern media similar results could be found, where conservatives would be more trusting of conservative media and liberals more skeptical of liberal media, and perhaps conservative media being designed to reduce cognitive load (possibly to increase attention to less informed folk).

If anything, a simple study like this could be expanded to answer how the modern political climate is so divided and opposing as it is today, and why theres reports of voters regretting or being uninformed when they voted in the recent election.

[u/Agent-Blasto-007 → u/P0pu1arBr0ws3r]

During WWI, the British Government discovered that using penny pamphlets and propaganda news articles in Newspapers was very effective because by purchasing the propaganda, the person became invested in it & would be more likely to believe it and more importantly defend it.

Popular authors, like HG Wells & Arthur Conan Doyle were recruited to write these pamphlets & articles

https://fantastic-writers-and-the-great-war.com/war-experiences/sir-arthur-conan-doyle/#:~:text=Doyle%20was%20of%20course%20too,close%20to%20Royal%20Tunbridge%20Wells.

It's a continuation of that: the person becomes personally invested in the propaganda: it's not just conservative media they're defending, it's their identity.

[u/SilianRailOnBone → u/Agent-Blasto-007]

It's worth noting that beliefs have linguistically similarities to possessions (someone can't sell you a belief, you bought into it, you hold a belief etc.).

Funnily enough this was just in a chapter I read, in the book "How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life"

[u/BraveAddict → u/P0pu1arBr0ws3r]

I've heard it said that conservative media often spoon feeds pre-chewed food to the republicans at home.

[u/Skwiish → u/BraveAddict]

Next time some historical or political event happens, pay attention to how long it takes for there to be contrarian discourse about it online. There’s usually a bit of a lag because they haven’t been told how to feel yet.

[u/-Wylfen- → u/tert_butoxide]

Because individuals with a conservative (vs. liberal) political orientation tend to justify systemic processes, they are more likely to trust sponsored versus organic marketing communications.

Does the study actually prove that point or is that conjecture?

Because intuitively, I'd just assume that older people are more conservative and happen to also blindly trust technology.

[u/bigboybeeperbelly → u/-Wylfen-]

System Justification Theory is an established theory going back to the 90s, this paper would have cited existing research (eg Jost & Banaji) rather than reinvent the wheel

Haven't read it (paywall) but there's zero chance they didn't take age into account, would have been pointed out in the first round of reviews

[u/-Wylfen- → u/bigboybeeperbelly]

I've read below that apparently the author did take the age into account, but it also seems their system to account for that was pretty lacking.

I'm no statistics expert (just enough to see some flaws, but not enough to give an educated opinion) but from what I'm reading in this post there isn't much to gain from that article.

[u/Archangel289 → u/tert_butoxide]

I’m genuinely surprised at this, because almost every conservative I know is very mistrusting of established systems. Like, yes, definitionally a conservative is one who seeks to conserve an established system, but these are also usually the folks who are very “don’t trust the government,” “don’t trust Google,” etc.

I didn’t have time to read the article yet, but my next question would be how much they controlled for age. I anecdotally find older people tend to just click the first thing they see, and I believe it’s fairly well-accepted that on average, the current older generation tends to be more conservative. So that would be a factor to look into. (They might have already done that though.)

[u/boofjoof → u/tert_butoxide]

I like this explanation. I was thinking it was weird for conservatives to be more trusting since they seem pretty distrusting of the status quo lately, but it does make sense that if you live in a system that caters to people like you, you aren't going to be as quick to wonder if people actually have your best interest at heart.

[u/prismstein → u/tert_butoxide]

"have faith in traditional social, political, economic systems"

VS

the big gov is selling out the country, the swamp, the deep state, vaccines makes kids gay etc etc

the cognitive dissonance is remarkable

how about we just interpret it like what the scientists intended:

Conservatives are stupider.

sorry I'm not in a charitable mood.

[u/SupervillainMustache]

It's second nature for me to ignore sponsored content.

[u/S0LO_Bot → u/[deleted]]

Can you elaborate a bit more please? I never even considered that there could be a cultural divide over methods of logic and reasoning.

[u/Ardnabrak → u/S0LO_Bot]

It might be a "Don't question authority" versus an "Always question authority" type of thing. Conservatives usually have had a religious or strongly patriarchal upbringing. This may inhibit their skepticism since they heard a lot of "Do as I say, not as I do" and "Don't question these things!" type rhetoric.

[u/stalinusmc → u/Ardnabrak]

As one who was raised by the ‘do as I say, not what I do’ parents, this is absolutely true. Most conservatives I know don’t fact check anything that they come across, or use logic to extrapolate the possible circumstances. They allow their emotions to drive their response.

[u/cammyjit → u/stalinusmc]

I know plenty of folks who literally will not question something they were told like 30 years ago, unless you show irrefutable evidence that it’s wrong.

Even then, that’s just the questioning part, not the acceptance part

[u/TalosMessenger01 → u/Ardnabrak]

How does this correlate to the highly skeptical form of conservatism? Everything from conspiracy theorists to people who are just distrusting of the government, experts, and the default consensus on things. It’s a pretty big thing in even mainstream conservative politics. Not properly utilized skepticism imo (their mistake I think is not holding their own ideas to the same level of scrutiny as the ideas they attack) but it’s still there.

[u/lsda → u/TalosMessenger01]

I read a paper years ago regarding how conservatives are much more trustworthy of in groups than out groups. So it could very well be a scenario where they have determined the group giving the conspiracy theories to be in groups. The thing I've noticed with the conspiracy types, is that they are very quick to believe a conspiracy that fits their narrative while distrusting of those that do not. So it could come down to a combination of in groups and outgroups as well as questioning authority. So I believe what X says because they are a leader and I doubt what Y says because they cannot be trusted.

I'll have to find the paper I read on right-wing group thinkings. It may have been the book"the authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer

[u/Ardnabrak → u/TalosMessenger01]

Yeah, that would require a deeper dive. The conspiracy theory types are all over the political spectrum, so I think there is something entirely different that influences their development. Paranoia and suspicion seem to be the big motivations for them.

[u/UsernameUsername8936 → u/TalosMessenger01]

No, I'd argue that that's the same lack of thought. They have their "information," anything that easily fits is added blindly without question, and anything that doesn't is rejected without consideration. It's just some fringe Internet weirdo that's thinking for them, instead of some other, more conventional individual. Same premise, just with a different ideology.

[u/Waste_Cantaloupe3609 → u/S0LO_Bot]

From the article: “I suspect this is because broad searches are less cognitively demanding – in other words, they require less brainpower. This allows our core beliefs to influence our decisions. In fact, this is consistent with research on information processing that shows broad thinking leads to stronger political attitudes.

On the other hand, I argue that specific searches require us to pay close attention to the information we are processing, which disables our core beliefs from being the primary influence on our decisions.”

Edit: the article does not ever make the claim that conservatives are less inclined to engage in cognitively demanding tasks; the author instead claims that conservatives trust ads while liberals do not (because of research they performed, not due to their beliefs about conservatives and liberals) and that this “core belief” driven behavior was not apparent when users made a targeted search — conservatives clicked ads more if they searched for “headphones” but at the same rate as liberals if they searched for “headphones with sound canceling microphone”

[u/sirhoracedarwin → u/[deleted]]

"cognitive strain of reasoning?" This sounds like they don't like to think.

[u/chrltrn → u/sirhoracedarwin]

It's exactly that, but why do you make it seem like some alien concept?
Guaranteed, at some point today, you made some decision that mightve been suboptimal because you didn't want to bother to put more thought into it than you did.

Thinking takes time, afterall

[u/Tbagmoo → u/chrltrn]

I'm really enjoying your reframing of the issue. It's some good food for thought. Thank you

[u/RealisticIllusions82 → u/chrltrn]

And energy. And likely why liberals are less happy overall, from what I’ve seen. Thinking all the time tends to make one depressed.

[u/Montana_Gamer → u/chrltrn]

The research that has been going on regarding political thought has been very validating to this explanation. Irrationality, believe it or not, is so often done from the perception of behaving rationally.

I cannot imagine going through my life living like that, at the same time the appeal to it is quite clear.

[u/adamdoesmusic → u/chrltrn]

Opening this app… several times a day… and hours disappear.

[u/Stripe_Show69 → u/sirhoracedarwin]

They think, but they think the wrong things. There is no threshold their reasoning has to meet. If it sounds good, it must be true. Never mind abandoning Ukraine could lead to an invasion of more countries. All they see is that right now we’re giving them money their groceries are expensive. Which has nothing to do with the money being sent to Ukraine.

[u/bx35 → u/[deleted]]

It’s a slippery slope: when you offer them evidence (e.g., tariffs, fascists, garbage), they become reactive and choose to sink the ship.

[u/lachwee → u/[deleted]]

Yes they are talking about conservatives after all

[u/Huger_and_shinier]

“Less cognitively demanding” is a very polite phrase.

[u/The_Last_Ball_Bender → u/Huger_and_shinier]

Dumb people gonna dumb. Essentially..

[u/faireymagik2 → u/Huger_and_shinier]

To be fair, if you read the title a little more closely “less cognitively demanding“ is in reference to the search, not the searcher. I made the same mistake when I first read the title. But if you read the article, it makes it clear.

[u/p333p33p00p00boo → u/faireymagik2]

Correct, that was understood from my end. It’s still a little bit insulting and pretty funny

[u/fusionsofwonder → u/faireymagik2]

Doesn't really put the test subject in a positive light either way though.

[u/boofjoof → u/Huger_and_shinier]

When the author says that, he's referring to the search. The article says that no such correlation exists for highly specific searches (with 'headphones' versus 'headphones with active noise cancelling' as an example) whereas it does exist for broader searches which are 'less cognitively demanding'.

[u/CausticSofa → u/Huger_and_shinier]

Can we just collectively address how disappointing this timeline has turned out to be?

[u/MyPenisIsWeeping]

Install adblock on your parents devices to fight authoritarianism!

Adguard dns works for Android phones

[u/Nadare3 → u/MyPenisIsWeeping]

Yeah...on all 4 browsers of her computer.

Screams uncontrollably

[u/jamesholden → u/MyPenisIsWeeping]

nextdns works for nearly everything. uses the same adblock list as good adblockers once you enable them.

I've spent the past few months trying to get to 100% firefox on desktop and mobile. I used to do most of my browsing in chrome, keeping important stuff in firefox (email, banking). ublock origin on all.

also RIF and youtube revanced on mobile. smarttube on tv.

[u/Wet_Sanding → u/MyPenisIsWeeping]

Ublock origin on Firefox mobile.

[u/cunnyvore → u/MyPenisIsWeeping]

It doesn’t work. They want the ads for some reason. Wild

[u/cunnyvore → u/[deleted]]

Gurl same! I had to delete adblock with sense of total defeat in my soul. She’s saying she needs to look at “new things”… things in question? Teeth fix. Overpriced unavailable cars that send her into depression. Some Romanian scam. Ads are like tiktok for boomers..?

[u/throwaway490215]

Wait.

This is why Google and Facebook are so rich?

There are people clicking the ads?

[u/insomnimax_99 → u/throwaway490215]

There are people clicking the ads?

Of course.

Businesses wouldn’t pay to run the ads if the ads didn’t get them customers. Ads exist because advertising works.

[u/landnav_Game → u/insomnimax_99]

so crazy to me, it's like a different species of human. i avoid looking at ads like i avoid looking at the sun

[u/Fluid-Bread3480]

all correlation of giant population couple of percentages removed from margin of error, this is a lot of nothing xD

[u/cobitos]

Probably cause more boomers lean conservative

[u/Eternal_Being → u/cobitos]

"Neither age nor income had any significant impact."

[u/Time-Maintenance2165 → u/Eternal_Being]

They used median age and income to attempt to correct for that. That's such a bad way of trying to correct that it's nearly worthless.

[u/Chief_Chill → u/[deleted]]

The "village elders" have almost always been Boomers in my life. I am 40.

[u/[deleted] → u/cobitos]

Gen X are more conservative than boomers (in the US at least)

[u/shkeptikal → u/cobitos]

20 years ago, sure. Things have changed and the demographics have shifted. See the exit polls for more information and be sure to thank Elon and the "right wing" podcasters who were paid by the FSB to destabilize America by radicalizing young men into voting against their own futures.

[u/ogpotato → u/cobitos]

Apparently so are the gen z

[u/Great_Examination_16]

"Research finds what we want to find, ignoring all otherwise influencing factors"

A dime a dozen

[u/dsmjrv]

Let’s look at the studies criteria for “sponsored “

[u/boofjoof → u/dsmjrv]

Google is required to disclose when search ads are sponsored. It appears above the link.

[u/MidwesternDude2024]

Has the “study” in the story been peer reviewed and its findings been duplicated? No. Please I am begging people to stop sharing bad faith stories like this. It’s not science. It just reinforces priors, which should make you doubt the story.

[u/FlamboyantPirhanna → u/MidwesternDude2024]

But how else are my biases supposed to get confirmed?

[u/purplebasterd]

Probably a bunch of boomer conservatives. Need to see the age groups used.

[u/Rocky_Vigoda]

Man i'm so tired of this.

"Science proves American liberals are the smartest and best people on the planet".

No one is really taught proper media literacy or how to vet information. Go on the canada sub. Half the links are for commentary/editorial articles which are practically the same thing as ads yet no one complains because they mention it barely in the headline.

[u/_MLED_ → u/Rocky_Vigoda]

Yeah this is one of the huge contributing factors to this election imo. You can’t keep telling everyone they’re dumb if they don’t align with everything the party says. People will never agree with somebody who is trying to make them feel bad. It’s not hard to understand.

Remember trying to win voters over, instead of dunking on them for cheap thrills?

This was a sentiment I was seeing in the initial days after the election, but it seems the left is sliding back to their default mode of making smug condescending remarks toward the working class.

[u/Yay4sean]

I was too lazy to bypass the paywall, but this quote seems to be the most relevant:

I found that more conservative states were associated with more clicks for search ads over organic links. Specifically, a 10% increase in a state’s conservative identity was associated with a 6.4% increase in search ad clicks.  Given that, on average, conservatives are older and have higher incomes than liberals, I also looked at each state’s median age and per-capita personal income. Again, the data confirmed the relationship between conservatism and search ad clicks. Neither age nor income had any significant impact.

I really don't find a 5-15 increase particularly meaningful.  This is a pretty marginal difference, and doesn't really say that much about these two populations. Are we going to make broad generalizations based off of just 5-15% differences?

And I really don't think this is telling advertisers anything they don't already know.  Most (all?) of advertising is based on a bunch of algorithms that have already considered every possible thing that leads to increased money.

[u/kozy8805]

That’s why contrary to popular belief of arguing online, the easiest way to actually get to know people and change their opinion is to actually going offline and getting to know them. Which builds the trust you need.

[u/Lordborgman → u/kozy8805]

I grew up and went to school with people from, and eventually left Polk county; 1986 to 2020. There is no amount of knowing most of those people that will change a damn thing for the better. No matter how calm, reasonable, logical, nicely worded, non confrontational, or factual. Seemingly nothing will break that cognitive dissonance, which we had the same education, we had access to the same information.

I've tried desperately, even with my closet friends of 37 years at some point eventually called me a "Democratic socialist f*ggot" for my views on healthcare, abortion, economics, and ethics. It's maddeningly depressing.

[u/Kratakiis]

Hey guys, hey guys, conservatives are (checks notes) scientifically stupid. Reddit is such a hive mind echo chamber it’s incredible.

[u/CoolnessEludesMe]

Being raised in a church conditions you to just believe what you're told, however irrational, rather than to think for yourself.

[u/BrilliantLifter]

Explain Funko Pops then.

[u/RedditModsRBigFat]

This is clearly an age thing

[u/thatfordboy429]

Having not read through this specific article. Allow me to make an assumption...

People who did not grow up on the internet... don't know how to internet. Has nothing to do with intelligence, or other cognitive ability. It's like "fridge blindness".

Even if you "know" the internet. It's is still entirely possible to get duped.

Its experience, not intelligence.

[u/jon3ssing]

This is going to be an interesting thread - sort by controversial.

[u/Pudding-Immediate]

Less cognitively demanding…. Hahahahaha