<p>"I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn that using the Internet doesn't necessarily promote belief in rumours," study author R. Kelly Garrett said. <br /><br />"Many people seem to think that's self-evident," added Garrett, assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University, reports the journal Human Communication Research.<br /><br />However, e-mail is a special case. People are much more likely to believe false rumours that they receive in e-mails from friends and family, according to an Ohio statement.<br /><br />People seem to be wary about rumours they read on websites and blogs, Garrett said. They are more likely to check these rumours to see if they are correct.<br /><br />"The problem is that we are more likely to let our defences down when we're dealing with our friends, which is why an e-mail can have such harmful consequences. We don't normally question what our friends tell us," he said.<br /><br />The study involved a phone survey of 600 Americans in November 2008, immediately after the presidential election. <br /><br />Results showed that use of the Internet and online sources of political information did indeed lead people to encounter more rumours about the candidates. <br /><br />The more political e-mails that participants received from friends and family during the 2008 election, the more rumours they were likely to believe. And the more rumours they believed, the more political e-mails they sent.</p>
<p>"I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn that using the Internet doesn't necessarily promote belief in rumours," study author R. Kelly Garrett said. <br /><br />"Many people seem to think that's self-evident," added Garrett, assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University, reports the journal Human Communication Research.<br /><br />However, e-mail is a special case. People are much more likely to believe false rumours that they receive in e-mails from friends and family, according to an Ohio statement.<br /><br />People seem to be wary about rumours they read on websites and blogs, Garrett said. They are more likely to check these rumours to see if they are correct.<br /><br />"The problem is that we are more likely to let our defences down when we're dealing with our friends, which is why an e-mail can have such harmful consequences. We don't normally question what our friends tell us," he said.<br /><br />The study involved a phone survey of 600 Americans in November 2008, immediately after the presidential election. <br /><br />Results showed that use of the Internet and online sources of political information did indeed lead people to encounter more rumours about the candidates. <br /><br />The more political e-mails that participants received from friends and family during the 2008 election, the more rumours they were likely to believe. And the more rumours they believed, the more political e-mails they sent.</p>