Ryerson Project Ryerson Project

Ryerson Project Item 69

I believe misinformation is a major threat to democracy.

American adults' average (mean) response was 8.27 on a scale of 0 (Disagree) to 10 (Agree). 272 responses have been collected (so far) from 2026-05-01 to 2026-10-30.

Descriptive Statistics

Mean8.27
Median9.00
Standard deviation2.05
N272
Standard error0.124

All-Time Distribution

Response 0: 2 Response 1: 1 Response 2: 2 Response 3: 3 Response 4: 7 Response 5: 16 Response 6: 17 Response 7: 26 Response 8: 53 Response 9: 31 Response 10: 114 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 114 Agreement (0 = maximum disagreement, 10 = maximum agreement) Count

Comparison to Other Items

Based on all-time mean agreement, this item ranks 12 out of 142 qualifying items and is at the 92.2 percentile.

Qualifying items have 100 or more total observations. Higher means indicate more agreement and therefore a higher rank.

Monthly Trend

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0% 50% 100% 0 5 10 2026-05 response 0: 0.0% 2026-05 response 1: 0.0% 2026-05 response 2: 2.5% 2026-05 response 3: 0.0% 2026-05 response 4: 2.5% 2026-05 response 5: 2.5% 2026-05 response 6: 2.5% 2026-05 response 7: 10.0% 2026-05 response 8: 27.5% 2026-05 response 9: 7.5% 2026-05 response 10: 45.0% 2026-06 response 0: 2.3% 2026-06 response 1: 2.3% 2026-06 response 2: 0.0% 2026-06 response 3: 0.0% 2026-06 response 4: 0.0% 2026-06 response 5: 0.0% 2026-06 response 6: 11.6% 2026-06 response 7: 9.3% 2026-06 response 8: 16.3% 2026-06 response 9: 11.6% 2026-06 response 10: 46.5% 2026-07 response 0: 0.0% 2026-07 response 1: 0.0% 2026-07 response 2: 0.0% 2026-07 response 3: 1.9% 2026-07 response 4: 1.9% 2026-07 response 5: 7.4% 2026-07 response 6: 1.9% 2026-07 response 7: 7.4% 2026-07 response 8: 22.2% 2026-07 response 9: 18.5% 2026-07 response 10: 38.9% 2026-08 response 0: 2.6% 2026-08 response 1: 0.0% 2026-08 response 2: 0.0% 2026-08 response 3: 2.6% 2026-08 response 4: 2.6% 2026-08 response 5: 2.6% 2026-08 response 6: 7.7% 2026-08 response 7: 15.4% 2026-08 response 8: 17.9% 2026-08 response 9: 5.1% 2026-08 response 10: 43.6% 2026-09 response 0: 0.0% 2026-09 response 1: 0.0% 2026-09 response 2: 0.0% 2026-09 response 3: 0.0% 2026-09 response 4: 2.1% 2026-09 response 5: 14.9% 2026-09 response 6: 8.5% 2026-09 response 7: 4.3% 2026-09 response 8: 12.8% 2026-09 response 9: 6.4% 2026-09 response 10: 51.1% 2026-10 response 0: 0.0% 2026-10 response 1: 0.0% 2026-10 response 2: 2.0% 2026-10 response 3: 2.0% 2026-10 response 4: 6.1% 2026-10 response 5: 6.1% 2026-10 response 6: 6.1% 2026-10 response 7: 12.2% 2026-10 response 8: 20.4% 2026-10 response 9: 16.3% 2026-10 response 10: 28.6% May 2026 Jun 2026 Jul 2026 Aug 2026 Sep 2026 Oct 2026 Observation month Percent of responses Monthly mean

Observed Trend

Observations suggest unchanging agreement over the observed period, from 2026-05-01 to 2026-10-30. The estimated change over that period is -0.596 points on a 0 to 10 scale. Regression results place a 95% confidence interval around that observed-period change of [-1.447, 0.255].
Regression table

The daily slope annualized over 365.25 days is -1.196 points per year, with a 95% confidence interval of [-2.904, 0.512]. This short-window annualized number is provided for reference, but the observed-period change above is the primary trend estimate.

Call:
lm(formula = response_value ~ days_since_start, data = model_data)

Residuals:
    Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
-8.3902 -1.0677  0.6278  1.6696  2.0190 

Coefficients:
                  Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept)       8.576782   0.255921  33.513   <2e-16 ***
days_since_start -0.003274   0.002375  -1.378    0.169    
---
Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 2.049 on 270 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared:  0.006987,	Adjusted R-squared:  0.003309 
F-statistic:   1.9 on 1 and 270 DF,  p-value: 0.1692