Key points:
An overwhelming majority of teens (94%) want their schools to teach media literacy, although only 39% say they received such instruction in the 2023-2024 school year, according to a study of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational organization.
The study reveals the alarming frequency with which American teenagers are exposed to and believe in conspiracy theories on social media. But research also found that teaching students media literacy is associated with healthy online habits, like checking facts before sharing them on social media.
The study –Information Literacy in America: A Survey of Adolescents’ Information Attitudes, Habits, and Skills– surveyed more than 1,000 young people aged 13 to 18 and highlights the urgent need for systemic information literacy teaching in our country’s schools.
“As we head into the final stretch of an election season characterized by the spread of information disorder, this survey demonstrates that we urgently need to prepare our young people to discern credible information from misleading or false information,” said the CEO and President of the News Literacy Project. Charles Salter. “American teens need to learn information skills so they can become more informed voters of the future.”
Among the findings:
- Eight in ten American teenagers say they see conspiracy theories on social media at least once a week. Some of the most commonly cited stories include the 2020 election being rigged or stolen, the COVID-19 vaccine being dangerous, and the Earth being flat.
- Among teens who reported seeing conspiracy theories, 81% said they believed at least one of them.
- Nearly half of adolescents (45%) think that the press does more to harm democracy than to protect it.
- Eight in 10 people say that information from news organizations is no more impartial than information from other online content creators.
- Less than a quarter of teens (23%) say they use generative AI chatbots once a week or more, challenging the notion that AI tools have already disrupted the way young people approach school work.
“This study highlights how information literacy skills are vitally important in an information environment dominated by social media. These platforms host harmful conspiracy theories, and our findings show that American adolescents are not exempt from being exposed to, or even potentially influenced by, them,” said Dr. Kim Bowman, co-author of the report. “We must do everything we can to make sure young people know how to protect themselves from lies – and this report shows that our students are calling for media literacy to be taught in schools. »
There was also reason to believe that teaching media literacy can help adolescents better navigate our information ecosystem.
Among the findings, adolescents with at least some exposure to media literacy instruction were more likely to:
- Engage in civic activities, such as combating misinformation
- Correctly identify an image depicting a real person versus an AI-generated likeness
- Report higher trust in news media and more active news habits
The study provides recommendations for parents and guardians, educators, policy makers and journalists to ensure that students have the knowledge and ability to participate in civic society as critical and knowledgeable thinkers by the time they graduate from high school.
“THE Information Literacy in America The report identifies that the country’s youth want media education to be offered in schools and the results could not show more clearly that this subject must become a priority in school curricula,” said Dr. Lance Holbert, Director from the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civic Education (LAIC). ) from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which was not involved in the study. “This should serve as a wake-up call to educate the youth of the country on the value of quality journalism for sustainable democracy.”
This press release originally appeared online.
