It has become commonplace on social networks to warn readers of an unreliable article, on the basis that it is likely to contain false or misleading information.
At what point during the reading of a misleading article should such a warning be issued in order to maximize its effectiveness? This is the question that the authors of this study sought to answer.
The results of this experimental study show that individuals remember better than an article is potentially misleading when the warning is issued directly after its reading. This result challenges the pertinence of current warnings, which generally take on the form of small labels present at the bottom of an article or next to its title.
