About

Social media has made financial advice more accessible than ever. Yet alongside its opportunities, it has also become a major source of misleading financial content, often causing young people to make poor financial decisions and suffer financial losses. The project Scrolling Into Debt: Gen Z's Financial Miseducation in the Digital Age, funded by the Anniversary Fund of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), investigates the prevalence, characteristics, and persuasive dynamics of misleading financial content on social media by assessing different types of financial miseducation content, uncovering the psychological mechanisms driving the impact of exposure to such content, and developing a co-created financial literacy program to protect Gen Z against financial miseducation. To this end, it employs a mixed-methods approach comprising a content analysis, focus group interviews, experimental research, and co-creation workshops. Ultimately, the project seeks to improve financial literacy programs, strengthen consumer protection, and contribute to more financially resilient societies. The project is led by the Advertising and Media Psychology (AdMe) Research Group at the Department of Communication of the University of Vienna.