Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens

Then why are people still using social network sites if they don't trust their own peers?

The irony behind "Trust in information from friends and peers, "people like me," dropped by 20 points, from 47 to 27 percent"

is that I don't trust it...

I think this is a natural progression as social media moves from early adopters to more mainstream. More people, more friends/followers leads to more noise and less signal. Does that mean that social media is dead? Probably not. It just means that people will adjust how they use it to make it more relevant to them. Focus on the people that add value and subtract those who do not.

This comes as no surprise when you consider that the trending topics in 2009 were CNN, Beck, Teabaggers, bank failures and bankers' profits, stock plunges and fund managers' riches, home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies driven by congress' failure to deliver a functional health care system. In the social media realm, thousands of unemployed Americans turned to affiliate marketing, desperate to make any amount of money. In doing so, they set up an untold number of quasi-media outlets, blogs and networks that further muddied information channels. Fundamentally, the national discourse was driven by skepticism, lies,greed,selfishness,divisive battles for public opinion, and desperate plays for mindshare. Small wonder the trust in media took a hit.

Gotta love the "Valley" lens. Tech, tech, tech. I hope you didn't hurt yourself slapping at those keys.

Maybe you should give a harder listen to Edelman's and Flieger's comments.

Let's remember that the "2010 Edelman Trust Barometer survey sampled 4,875 informed publics in two age groups (25-34 and 35-64). All informed publics met the following criteria: college-educated; household income in the top quartile for their age in their country; read or watch business/news media at least several times a week; follow public policy issues in the news at least several times a week." (Source)

That revealed, we're really talking about influentials not trusting each other (peers) -- not the population at large. Seriously, these respondents are upper class, very well educated citizens.

To say "People don't trust (each other)..." is a misnomer. "Influentials don't trust each other" *may* be fair. Being rich and well-schooled doesn't necessarily mean someone is an influential, either.

Great post. I'll be able to use it in Survey Research class as an example for reporting & analyzing results. Thanks.

This reminds me of the old saying statistics are like a bikini, they reveal what's interesting, yet conceal what's essential.

Trust is down across the board, as they say, there's been a slip in everything.

We've stopped believing all sources, and have become cynical about the noise.
So you better have a story worth telling. In this case, it appears like Edelman is sucking up to its market, tech and financial markets. believe me.

Would you trust Edelman (a PR agency) with a 'trust' survey?

I think the only reason they do the survey is to get the coverage around the results.

(Jaded, I know).

I picked on social media, but it is the *overall* drop in trust of *all* forms of media that is interesting.

I can get Automotive tying for second place. I mean, geezus, the American people own the auto-industry now. If they can’t trust themselves, how are they supposed to look themselves in the mirror every morning and keep bullshitting themselves into thinking that what they’ve been doing for last two decades has actually meant anything and that they should keep doing it?

But Biotech? Ye gawds, it’s a college student’s worst nightmare. I mean, they’ve done things to farmers, genes, and the American justice system that would make an Father O’Hanrahan blush. But I digress…

Tom, maybe I missed that part of the report. The statistic I see has trust in "people like me" going from 47% in 2009 to 44% in 2010, as shown in Fig. 8 on page 5 of the report.

If there's another figure elsewhere that shows a drop of 20 points for this category, I'd like to be sure I see it.

Thanks Scott, I'm using the top line numbers that Edelman representatives provided.

So if trust in all sources of information declines, doesn't that beg the question: what, if anything, DO people trust? There has to be something, right? Do they only trust what they see with their own eyes now?

I ran into Shel Holtz and he said he once asked Richard Edelman what exactly was being measured, and he said it was 'confidence that organizations will do the right thing,' which I guess is a type of 'trust sentiment' rather than trust itself.

Looks like this is just part of google-bots plan to take over the world.

Seriously though, I wonder why trust in Wikipedia is so low. It seems like the information on that site is getting better and more reliable as time goes on.