Trust is a strange concept, and trust involves trial and error. Everyone has experienced what a wrong assessment can mean. Sometimes resulting in a lot of misery: divorces, dismissals, wars, accidents, a dog bite, and so on.
How do people assess whether something or someone is trustworthy? Does this skill develop over time? It is not without reason that young children start out very reserved and cautious. But they are also extremely inquisitive and experimental. You learn to trust by gaining experience.
New technology makes it even harder to distinguish between real and fake. How do we arm ourselves against abuse of our trust? And how important is trust for brands?
Video manipulation and calling robots
A video in which Obama says what he would never say himself: new technology makes it possible to have world leaders declare war on each other. Video that is indistinguishable from the real thing will make it even harder to judge whether something is real or not in the future. Parties that guarantee the authenticity of reporting and content will therefore become increasingly important.
Google Duplex is an assistant that sounds like a human (the bot speaks with pauses and saliva sounds). It is possible that in the near future you will be called by a computer without knowing it. These are confusing times in which fact-checking will become increasingly important and new ethical and moral questions will arise.
In 2017 and 2018, Mediabrands Marketing Sciences, Alpha.One and Sanoma conducted a series of studies to map the concept of 'trust'. The series started last year with a consumer survey among 1,000 Dutch people. In this survey, the researchers asked to what extent the Dutch have trust in politicians, media and companies and to what denmark telegram data extent this has increased or decreased. The data from the BrandAsset Valuator of Y&R was also analyzed for this purpose.
Trust must grow
The Dutch trust their partners the most (71 percent trust their partner). Trust must grow, as is evident from the fact that young people distrust their partner more than older people do. Trust is decreasing. 33 percent of the Dutch say they have lost trust in social media in the past year and 43 percent say the same about trust in politicians. Only 19 percent currently trust social media. It is striking that experienced social media users, mainly young people, are more cautious. It seems that older people are somewhat more naive and have had fewer negative experiences with social media than young people.
According to the studies, the average Dutch person mainly trusts newspapers. A majority of 56 percent finds daily newspapers reliable. 60 percent of Dutch people do not trust news directly. More than half of our compatriots check the source of a news item. It also appears that print offers a more reliable environment than an internet environment.