In our research, we found, first and foremost, that their experience is differentiated by the actual digital spaces in which they engage. As I mentioned in my remarks, they use private encrypted chat applications at a higher rate than Canadian averages. By virtue of the design of these digital spaces, their experiences are different. This is because these private digital spaces are unique among other public social media platforms, such as X, YouTube, Facebook and so forth. In these private digital spaces, you're engaging with individuals you know, and information is being shared with people whom you often trust. This, at an individual level, often impacts how information quality is assessed and processed.
As individual users, we all use these heuristic devices and cognitive shortcuts to quickly assess and process information that's incoming, and we process the quality of the information. As for the shortcuts that were shared with us by focus group participants, sometimes the identity of the sender would impact how they processed and received the information. They're in a chat group; they have an auntie in there, and that auntie is very trusted. The auntie is known to send good-quality information, so they're going to trust what she's sending to them.
Vice versa, they also use this on the flip side. Sometimes individuals develop a reputation in these private chat groups for sharing poor-quality information—sometimes misinformation. This is also used as a shortcut to ignore that kind of information.
The digital spaces in which they engage shape their experiences with disinformation online.