Survey: Nearly 1 in 4 Consumers Distrust Government COVID Data
Hendra Su/iStock
By
Frank Konkel
The survey also showed significant levels of distrust in some emerging technologies.
While the federal government and state and local health agencies are supposed to serve as authoritative sources of coronavirus-related information, a survey released this week suggests nearly 1 in 4 Americans do not trust pandemic-related information from these officials.
The survey, conducted by Ohio-based information management firm Hyland Software, polled 1,000 consumers on their trust levels of various information sources and technologies, including artificial intelligence and social media platforms.
The survey revealed 22% of respondents “have some distrust or no trust at all” in COVID-19-related information provided by government leaders. The vast majority of Americans are opting to receive autoreactive COVID-19 information from other sources, with only 13% using federal websites as a primary source of virus information, and 15% using state or local government websites.
Respondents also showed high levels of distrust emerging technologies—many of which experienced an uptick in use during the pandemic. More than 4 in 10 Americans reported distrust or no trust of chatbots—software-based assistants that engage with customers on the phone or websites—and 39% reported similar feelings with smart speaker assistants. In addition, 57% identified AI as the technology “that has the most potential to cause harm” over the next decade due to misuse.
The least trusted technology among survey respondents was social media platforms. More than half of those surveyed, 52%, distrusted social media, with 1 in 5 reporting “no trust” in the information they see on social media. Conversely, long-established technologies, including landline telephones, mobile telephones and fax machines, were the most-trusted technologies among consumers.
Despite the distrust in emerging technologies, 71% of respondents said their use of the aforementioned technologies increased during the pandemic, with 44% reporting a significant uptick in tech use. The single largest reason for the increased tech use, respondents said, was boredom.