Study Finds Five Social Media Posts Can Form Stable Opinions

A peer-reviewed study published Tuesday in Information Systems Research reports that people begin forming lasting opinions on unfamiliar topics after viewing roughly five social media posts. The study, titled “Where the Ball Starts Rolling? An Empirical Investigation into Initial Opinion Formation on Social Media Platforms,” used Instagram-style posts to simulate typical scrolling.

Participants encountered new information and were asked to interact with it in ways that mirrored real social media use. Researchers identified a “Point of Critical Information” after which additional confirming posts became easier to accept, even when the information was false.

Participants trusted repeated posts over accuracy checks, the study found. ,” even when credentials were unverified. “People tend to assume opinions develop gradually through deliberate evaluation,” said Ashish Kumar Jha, co-author and professor at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin.

” “Our findings suggest the earliest exposures users encounter online may carry far more weight than platforms currently recognize,” said Venu Puthineedi, co-author and professor at NEOMA Business School. ” The study examined how social media platforms handle credibility and content visibility during major breaking-news events such as elections.