The study surveyed 220 adults aged 20 to 49 during 2024, using a quantitative, descriptive, non-experimental, and cross-sectional design. Participants were recruited through non-probability convenience sampling, with the online self-administered questionnaire distributed via LinkedIn, WhatsApp groups, and Facebook communities dedicated to job search and employability. The 27-item instrument covered social media use for job hunting, perceived effectiveness compared with traditional methods, platform-specific habits, demographic and professional factors, and the kinds of employment-related content that attract the most attention. Data were processed in Microsoft Excel and analyzed with descriptive statistics, including frequencies and percentages.

The headline number is striking: 77.7 percent of respondents reported having used a social platform to search for work, while only 22.3 percent had not. Even more telling, 78 percent said they personally know someone who landed a job through social media, a figure that reinforces the perception of these platforms as effective mechanisms of labor intermediation. The researchers note that this convergence between indirect success stories and favorable assessments suggests that exposure to positive outcomes in one’s social circle is associated with a more positive view of social media as an employability tool.

Yet the picture is far from uniformly optimistic. When asked to rate social media against traditional job-search methods, exactly half of the sample described the platforms as effective or very effective, with 37.27 percent choosing effective and 12.72 percent very effective. The other half was split between neutral positions, at 28.63 percent, and negative assessments, at 21.35 percent. This divided verdict, the authors argue, reveals that perceived effectiveness is differentiated rather than universal, and it hints that the value of a platform depends heavily on what kind of content flows through it and how skillfully users navigate it.

Platform preferences followed clear functional lines. Facebook emerged as the most frequently used network for job search, prized for its employment-related groups and ease of interaction, making it a natural channel for mass-reach recruitment of operational and administrative profiles. LinkedIn, by contrast, was associated with specialized professional vacancies and networking, consistent with its established role in executive and expert hiring. Instagram occupied an emerging middle ground, valued for its visual dynamism and closeness to brands, which positions it as a growing venue for employer branding and the presentation of organizational culture through dynamic formats. The authors conclude that these platforms should not be understood as interchangeable tools but as communication environments with distinct communicative logics.

Demographic patterns added further texture. The 25-to-34-year-old age group proved to be the most active segment in using social media for employment purposes, reflecting documented tendencies among younger users who show greater familiarity with digital environments. Education also mattered: participants with university education tended to gravitate toward professional platforms such as LinkedIn, while those with secondary or technical education mainly relied on mass-reach networks such as Facebook. Respondents with more than five years of work experience showed a stronger preference for corporate and professional platforms, reinforcing the idea that platform choice tracks the specialization of a person’s occupational profile.

What kind of content actually draws job seekers in? The clearest answer came from the question of what motivates interaction with employment-related posts. A clear and direct message dominated, cited by 72.27 percent of participants, followed by the relevance of the offer at 43.18 percent and attractive visual design at 39.09 percent. When asked which aspects of social media were most effective for job search, access to updated information led decisively with 51.36 percent of mentions, ahead of expanding one’s network of contacts at 30.90 percent and ease of use at 16.81 percent. Elements tied to professional projection, such as greater profile visibility and networking opportunities, trailed far behind. Participants also singled out testimonial videos and publications with transparent information about salaries, benefits, and requirements as the most valued formats.

The findings carry theoretical weight as well. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social capital, the authors argue that digital platforms do not replace social capital but reconfigure how it is produced, circulated, and mobilized in contemporary labor markets. Manuel Castells’ notion of the network society frames the results as part of a broader shift toward algorithmic models of labor intermediation, in which recruitment increasingly depends on data, segmentation, and predictive analysis rather than the simple publication of vacancies. The study also acknowledges that visibility on social media is conditioned by algorithms that prioritize engagement, meaning that job search is not a neutral process but one structured by technological criteria that influence which opportunities are shown, to whom, and how frequently.

The researchers are careful about the limits of their evidence. Because the sample was recruited through digital channels and selected by convenience, participants likely possessed a minimum level of digital access and familiarity, which may have inflated their favorable assessments. The study therefore captures the perceptions of digitally active users and may underrepresent people with limited digital skills, lower connectivity, or weaker familiarity with employment platforms. The authors also note that positive perceptions of social media may partially reflect users’ pre-existing digital capital, including information-search abilities, profile management, and networking skills, rather than the intrinsic effectiveness of the platforms themselves. Given the descriptive design and non-probability sampling, the findings should be read as patterns within the analyzed sample, not as generalizations about the Costa Rican population.

For employers and recruiters, the practical message is that one-size-fits-all cross-posting is a losing strategy. On mass-reach networks such as Facebook, the authors recommend prioritizing informational clarity, attractive visual formats, and direct calls to action that facilitate applications. On LinkedIn, the emphasis should fall on organizational reputation through specialized content, thought leadership, and networking strategies. Instagram, with its visual and narrative logic, can support recruitment marketing through testimonial content and stories that make employment opportunities more accessible and engaging. As digital skills become a structural condition of employability in a country where roughly 90 percent of the population uses social media frequently, the study suggests that the gap between those who can strategically navigate these platforms and those who cannot may increasingly shape who gets hired, and who gets left behind.

Subject of Research: The use and perceived effectiveness of Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for job search among digitally active adults in Costa Rica

Article Title: The impact of social media on job search in Costa Rica: an analysis from digital communication

Article References: Ulate-Vindas, C., Salazar-Aguilar, J. P., Castillo-Alfaro, N., & Carbonell-Parés, M. A. (2026). The impact of social media on job search in Costa Rica: an analysis from digital communication. Frontiers in Communication, 11, Article 1927812. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2026.1927812

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2026.1927812

Keywords: social media, job search, Costa Rica, digital communication, recruitment, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, employability, employer branding, digital skills, labor market

The research, published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, was conducted by Júlia Számely and Elisa Omodei of the Department of Network and Data Science at Central European University in Vienna, together with Júlia Koltai of Eötvös Loránd University and the Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest. The team linked traditional survey responses with donated Facebook trace data drawn from a representative sample of the Hungarian internet user population. This dual approach allowed them to ask two complementary questions at once: who, in socio-demographic terms, is more likely to engage with misinformation, and what patterns of online behaviour accompany that engagement?

Hungary offers an unusually compelling setting for such an investigation. Over the past decade and a half, the country has drawn international attention for democratic backsliding, including the concentration of political power, pressures on independent journalism, and a media landscape in which pro-government outlets dominate much of the information environment. In societies where the media ecosystem itself is contested, understanding which individuals end up engaging with misinformation becomes not just an academic puzzle but a question with direct consequences for democratic deliberation. Misinformation in such contexts is not a fringe phenomenon; it can be woven into mainstream channels of political communication, making individual-level vulnerability harder to isolate and study.

Methodologically, the study stands out for its use of donated social media data. Participants in a representative survey agreed to share traces of their Facebook activity, giving researchers access to behavioural records that would otherwise remain invisible. Self-reported survey measures capture what people say about their media diets, their trust, and their beliefs, but such reports are notoriously prone to bias. Trace data, by contrast, reveal actual behaviour: which pages users follow, which interest clusters they belong to, and how they move through the platform’s ecosystem of communities. By joining the two data sources at the individual level, the researchers could compare the predictive power of conventional demographic variables against that of lived online behaviour.

The central finding is striking in its simplicity. Among the socio-demographic factors the study examined, only age showed a consistent association with misinformation engagement. Other conventional suspects, such as education level, gender, or income, did not emerge as reliable predictors once the full picture was considered. This challenges a widespread intuition, common both in public debate and in parts of the research literature, that misinformation is primarily a problem of particular demographic groups. The Hungarian data suggest that knowing a person’s place in the social structure tells us far less about their misinformation engagement than knowing where they spend their attention online.

What did matter, strongly and consistently, was membership in specific interest clusters on Facebook. Online platforms like Facebook organize social life into overlapping communities built around shared interests, identities, and information sources. The study found that these clusters act as powerful filters of information exposure: some ecosystems amplify engagement with misinformation, while others are associated with lower levels of such engagement. In other words, the communities a user belongs to shape which content crosses their screen, and repeated exposure within a like-minded environment can normalize engagement with dubious content. A user embedded in an information ecosystem saturated with unverified claims encounters, and therefore has far more opportunities to interact with, misleading material.

This framing recasts misinformation engagement less as an individual failure of judgment and more as a structural property of online environments. The algorithmic curation and social reinforcement that define modern platforms mean that users do not confront the information landscape alone; they see it through the lens of their communities. If those communities consistently circulate and endorse false or misleading content, engagement follows almost as a matter of course. Conversely, users whose communities anchor themselves in more reliable information sources appear buffered against such exposure. The practical implication is sobering: interventions aimed purely at individual characteristics, such as media literacy training targeted at particular age or education groups, may miss the mechanism that matters most, which is the informational character of the communities people inhabit.

The study’s broader methodological argument deserves equal attention. The authors emphasize that structural socio-demographic factors should be studied together with online behaviour to provide a more complete understanding of what drives misinformation engagement. Neither data source alone tells the full story. A survey can situate a person within their social context, but it cannot see the communities they actually inhabit online. Trace data can map those communities with precision, but without survey linkage they remain detached from the social characteristics of the people behind the accounts. Only by combining the two can researchers disentangle the relative contributions of social position and digital behaviour. The Hungarian study demonstrates that this combination can overturn assumptions built on either source in isolation, since the apparent demographic patterns may dissolve once community membership is taken into account.

The research also carries lessons for how misinformation should be studied in countries undergoing democratic strain. Hungary’s changing media landscape, marked by shifting ownership structures and politically aligned outlets, makes individual-level engagement with misinformation especially salient, the authors note. In such environments, the line between misinformation and partisan mainstream content can blur, and engagement with misleading content may reflect the structure of available information sources as much as any personal disposition. Studies conducted in more pluralistic media environments may not capture these dynamics, which makes evidence from Hungary valuable for understanding how information ecosystems shape behaviour wherever media independence is under pressure. The findings resonate with a growing body of work suggesting that the supply side of misinformation, meaning the networks and pages that produce and circulate it, deserves as much scrutiny as the demand side of individual susceptibility.

The study was conducted online between February and June 2023, approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the ELTE Centre for Social Science in Budapest, and carried out with explicit informed consent from all participants, who received detailed information about the objectives of the research and data management before taking part, and who retained the right to request deletion of their data at any time. The work was funded through the CEU Open Access Fund and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Lendület Program. Its publication in an open-access journal ensures that the evidence, and the methodological template it offers, are available to researchers and policymakers grappling with misinformation far beyond Hungary’s borders.

The takeaway for anyone concerned about the health of the online information sphere is that community is destiny, at least where misinformation is concerned. Age may mark who is more or less likely to engage with false content, but the ecosystems people join on social platforms appear to do far more work in determining what they see and how they respond. Efforts to slow the spread of misinformation may therefore achieve more by focusing on the structure of online communities, the sources they amplify, and the pathways through which dubious content reaches them, rather than on demographic profiles alone. As social media platforms continue to sort users into increasingly self-reinforcing interest clusters, the Hungarian evidence serves as a reminder that the fight against misinformation is fought not just in individual minds, but in the architecture of the digital spaces where those minds gather.

Subject of Research: Socio-demographic and online behavioural drivers of misinformation engagement in Hungary using linked survey and Facebook trace data

Article Title: Socio-demographic and online behavioural drivers of misinformation engagement in Hungary: evidence from linked survey and social media data

Article References: Számely, J., Koltai, J., & Omodei, E. (2026). Socio-demographic and online behavioural drivers of misinformation engagement in Hungary: evidence from linked survey and social media data. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-09002-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-026-09002-0

Keywords: misinformation, Hungary, Facebook, social media, survey data, trace data, online communities, interest clusters, demographic factors, information ecosystems, democratic backsliding, computational social science

The study, published in the journal Discover Conservation, examined 481 unique comments drawn from the two Facebook posts, both dated October 7, 2025. The researchers deliberately waited about two months before scraping the data using a cloud-based automation service, ensuring that reactions and comments had stabilised before analysis. The provincial government page, with roughly 182,000 followers, attracted a more localised audience, while SunStar Davao’s 1.3 million followers gave the story a broader national reach. From the full set of 806 comments, the team excluded nearly 60 percent for reasons of relevance and substance, leaving a core of 481 substantive remarks. Many commenters appeared to have direct or indirect connections to Davao Oriental, evident from local expressions, self-references, and vivid descriptions of local ecosystems, livelihoods, and mining-related impacts, although the authors caution that these users cannot be treated as statistically representative of the general population.

The analytical approach was grounded in Social Representations Theory, a framework that explains how shared beliefs, values, and meanings are socially constructed and circulated through communication, shaping how communities understand contested issues. Rather than treating each comment as an isolated opinion, the researchers interpreted them as manifestations of collectively negotiated understandings of environmental risk, governance, livelihood, and community well-being. Comments written in Cebuano and Filipino were translated into English with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools and then carefully reviewed by team members fluent in the local languages, who worked to preserve tone, sarcasm, and culturally embedded meanings. Using Braun and Clarke’s six-step reflexive thematic analysis, two independent groups of researchers coded the comments separately, then reconciled discrepancies by consensus to strengthen reliability.

The results coalesced into six themes of public sentiment. The largest, community voice and protest, captured 139 comments and revealed a widespread sense that local voices were ignored or marginalised by those in authority, breeding scepticism toward official claims about biodiversity conservation, environmental rehabilitation, and responsible mining. Governance and accountability followed with 107 comments, expressing frustration over perceived government complicity, accusations of corruption and bribery, and anger that mining near the sanctuary has already cleared approximately 200 hectares of forest land. Environmental degradation drew 94 comments, with users describing stripped-bare mountains, dried rivers, declining biodiversity, and fragmented forest cover, and insisting that no amount of money or replanting can fully restore these sites. Calls for action and hope accounted for 55 comments, social and health impacts 20, and economic and livelihood impacts 15.

That final theme, though the smallest, captures perhaps the sharpest tension. Some commenters acknowledged that families rely on mining for their livelihoods and worried about job losses should operations cease, while others argued that communities survived long before the industry arrived and cautioned against dependence on a single sector. Calls mounted for alternative livelihood programmes, alongside dissatisfaction with the distribution of mining benefits, which many felt were disproportionately enjoyed by politicians, officials, and companies while communities bore the environmental costs. The study situates this local dispute within a global debate, noting that the Philippines ranks fifth in untapped reserves of valuable metal ores, with an estimated value of one trillion US dollars, and that mining productivity has grown exponentially worldwide over the past 150 years as the backbone of industrial and digital development.

What makes Davao Oriental exceptional, and the dispute so charged, is the ecological stakes. The Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary is home to the critically endangered Philippine Eagle, the national bird, and continues to yield new species to science, including the long-horned beetle Paraskeletodes hamiguitanensis and the recently described endemic plant Begonia corazoniae. The sanctuary’s ecological integrity is linked to downstream ecosystems that connect to Pujada Bay, a marine protected area recognised as one of the Most Beautiful Bays of the World and tentatively listed as a UNESCO World Heritage extension. The bay is an ancient nesting site for green, hawksbill, and olive ridley turtles, shelters the dugong, and lies within the Coral Triangle, the global epicentre of marine biodiversity. Parts of the mining tenements, which span roughly 5,000 hectares of coastal and mountainous concessions, overlap with the ancestral domain of the Mandaya indigenous people, whose cultural identity and ecological knowledge are deeply tied to the land.

From these findings, the team developed the RESPECT framework, a community-based action model that translates public sentiment into practical conservation strategy. Its components call for re-evaluating land-use plans and zoning policies to clearly separate conservation zones from mining concessions; expanding the boundaries of the sanctuary and the bay under a ridge-to-reef, whole-of-island perspective; sustaining environmental protection initiatives that empower indigenous and local communities as conservation champions; providing ecological regeneration of mined-out areas grounded in scientific assessments of soil, water, and biodiversity; and reducing reliance on mining income through alternative and additional livelihoods. The framework further urges voters to prioritise candidates with firm anti-mining and environmental agendas, promotes multi-stakeholder collaboration involving universities, churches, and civil society, and emphasises environmental education in schools to cultivate a stewardship ethic among the young. The framework was refined through consultation with academics, priests, environmental lawyers, church leaders, and advocates, ensuring it reflects community and multidisciplinary perspectives rather than academic interpretation alone.

The political context is shifting rapidly. The provincial government has issued statements inclined toward the cessation or closure of the nickel mining operations and has formally requested their rescission through provincial resolution. A House Bill has been filed to declare Davao Oriental a mining-free zone, although its passage has since been halted. Internationally, environmental groups have repeatedly called for a complete halt to mining near the heritage site, and reporting on nickel mining damage near the sanctuary has stirred national outrage. The researchers argue that these overlapping pressures make sentiment analysis especially valuable: while social media data cannot deliver sector-specific conclusions, they reveal how socially visible participants frame the trade-offs between economic development and environmental protection, where public conflict originates, and where community expectations for accountability and livelihood transition are most clearly articulated.

The study’s broader message is that digital discourse deserves a formal seat in environmental governance. Guided by Social Representations Theory, the authors contend that collective meanings about mining are constructed, shared, and reinforced through online social interaction, and that these expressions can and should guide public policy and social action aimed at natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. In a province where indigenous cultural communities maintain longstanding material, cultural, and spiritual relationships with land and sea, ignoring public sentiment risks both ecological damage and social conflict. The team recommends institutionalising the RESPECT framework to re-evaluate and reimagine the province’s mining sector, insisting that transparency and genuine community engagement are prerequisites for any ecologically centred mining practice. As mining faces mounting scrutiny worldwide, this study suggests that the comments section, often dismissed as noise, may in fact be a rich and largely untapped data source for the science of conservation.

The historical backdrop helps explain why emotions run so high in these online exchanges. The Philippines industrialised its mineral sector during the American occupation, and in 1995 the Mining Act, Republic Act 7942, was enacted to stimulate extraction and economic growth. Yet the industry has long been criticised for habitat degradation, biodiversity loss, and pollution, with environmental impact assessments frequently functioning more as compliance exercises than genuine safeguards. In Banaybanay, Davao Oriental, an overflowing mining catchment pond released orange laterite sediment rich in chromium and nickel, threatening freshwater and marine life in nearby waterways.

The choice of Facebook as a data source reflects its dominance in the Philippines, where it is among the most widely used platforms and where users often express sharply polarised political opinions. This makes the platform a natural arena for contested environmental issues, though the researchers acknowledge important limitations: only publicly shared comments could be collected, and demographic details such as age, locality, and political background could not be verified, meaning the sample cannot be generalised to the wider population.

The authors also frame the work as a form of citizen science, in which online expressions of environmental concern can serve as evidence for monitoring ecological decline and preventing conflict. This matters in Mindanao, where mining grievances have intersected with insurgency, poverty, and social exclusion, and where the killing of indigenous peoples has fuelled resistance to corporate extraction. Because mining impacts are not experienced uniformly, but are shaped by gendered roles and inequalities, the researchers argue that sentiment analysis can reveal whose concerns are loudest and whose remain unheard, helping policymakers design responses that are inclusive, equitable, and culturally sensitive rather than purely economic in orientation.

Subject of Research: Social media sentiment analysis to inform community-based conservation in mining-affected landscapes near a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Davao Oriental, the Philippines

Article Title: Analysing social media sentiments to inform community-based conservation in mining-affected landscapes near a World Heritage Site in Davao Oriental, the Philippines

Article References: Villegas, J., Verzosa, R., Bauyot, M. F., Hemillan, J., Pilar, J., Ngoho, M. C. J. N., Rivera, E., Medina, M. N., Antonio, E., & Sumile, E. (2026). Analysing social media sentiments to inform community-based conservation in mining-affected landscapes near a World Heritage Site in Davao Oriental, the Philippines. Discover Conservation, 3(1), Article 39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44353-026-00107-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44353-026-00107-w

Keywords: social media sentiment, community-based conservation, open-pit mining, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mount Hamiguitan, Davao Oriental, biodiversity, nickel mining, thematic analysis, Facebook, indigenous communities, ecological regeneration