This study, while providing insightful information on the spread and impact of conspiracy theories on short-form social media platforms, has limitations that should be acknowledged when analyzing the data. Firstly, the age distribution was not uniform across age groups. This made it more difficult to consider the potential pull that outliers had when looking at the data. Additionally, geographical distribution was not controlled on this survey, and a large number of the participants are from the same few places. This can potentially skew the results, reflecting the experiences and perspectives of certain regions over others.
There was also a tremendous underrepresentation of respondents who identified politically as Republican. Republican users made up 14% of the total survey respondents, while democrats made up 59%. This skewed distribution makes it far more difficult to generalize across the groups. The lack there of the participants sex/sexual orientation is another limitation, as cross referencing the sexual orientation data with the survey questions would provide powerful insight to how different genders are impacted and view conspiracy theories.
Lastly, the format of some survey questions proved to cause difficulty when coding and counting the data. The survey instrument may have been inadequate in capturing the full, complex experience of the participants and understanding of conspiracy theories on these platforms. Future research should strive for more balanced demographics and consider a different method to address these limitations.
Due to some limitations, such as not having a balanced mix of ages, places, and political views among participants, the study might not reflect the views of all people accurately. This affects the study's ability to be applied broadly, which is called external validity. Also, the way participants are asked survey questions might have confused participants, affecting the study's internal validity—this means that the methods might not have perfectly captured the goal of the study. To improve future research, these issues should be addressed in order to insure that the results are truly representative of the real world application.