Conspiracy theories are commonplace for teenagers on the Internet. Media literacy – no.

“They include narratives such as the Earth is flat, the 2020 election is rigged or stolen, and the COVID-19 vaccine is dangerous,” the News Literacy Project reports.

While teens don’t believe every conspiracy theory they see, 81 percent of those who see such content online said they believe one or more.

Bowman noted, “As dangerous or harmful as they may be, these narratives are designed to be engaging and to satisfy deep psychological needs, such as the need for community and understanding. Being a conspiracy theorist or believing in a conspiracy theory can become part of one’s personality. It’s not necessarily a label that a person avoids sharing with others.”

At the same time, the report found that the level of media literacy is low. Only six states have guidelines on how to teach media literacy, and only three make it mandatory in public schools.

According to the analysis, less than 40 percent of teens surveyed reported receiving any media literacy instruction during the 2023-24 school year.

Reliable sources

As part of the data collection for the report, teenagers were asked to try to distinguish between different types of information they might encounter online. They also had to identify real or fake photos and assess whether the source of the information was credible.

The studies asked participants to identify a series of articles as advertising, opinion, or news.

More than half of teens failed to identify branded content — a news story about plant-based meat in the Washington Post’s news app — as an ad. About the same number did not understand that the article with “comment” in the title refers to the opinion of the author.

They were more likely to recognize Google’s “sponsored” results as advertising, but about 40 percent of teens said they thought the results were popular or good. Only 8 percent of teenagers correctly classified the information in all three examples.

In another exercise, teenagers were asked to decide which of two pieces of information about Coca-Cola’s plastic waste was more credible: a Coca-Cola press release or a Reuters article. The results were too close for comfort for the report, with only 56 percent of teens choosing the Reuters article as more credible.

Brand recognition may have played a role in teenagers choosing Coca-Cola over Reuters, Bowman says, feeling that a more recognizable company commands more trust.

“Whatever the reason, I think news organizations that engage young people on social media and build trust and recognition there may have the potential to move the needle on this in the future,” Bowman said.

Fact check

Where teenagers felt confident detecting hoaxes was through visuals.

Two-thirds of the study participants said they could do a reverse image search on Google to find the original source of the image. About 70 percent of teenagers could correctly distinguish an AI-generated image from a real photo.

To test teenagers’ ability to spot misinformation, they were asked whether a photo of a melting traffic light posted on social media was “convincing evidence that high temperatures in Texas melted traffic lights in July 2023.”

Most of the teenagers answered correctly, but about one-third still believed that the photo alone was strong evidence that the claim about the melting traffic lights was true.

Bowman said the fact that there was no difference in students’ performance when the results were analyzed by their age made her wonder if teenagers “of any age were getting the message that they can’t always believe their eyes when it comes to to the images they see online.”

“Their radars seem to be off when it comes to identifying manipulated, distorted or completely fabricated images,” Bowman continued. “Especially with recent advances and the availability of generative AI technologies, I wonder if it might be harder to convince them of the authenticity of a photo that is actually real and verified than it is to convince them that the image is somehow wrong.”

When it came to posting on social media, teens expressed a strong desire to make sure their posts contained the right information. So how do they do their own fact-checking, given that a minority of teenagers actively follow the news or take media literacy classes?

Among teens who said they check news before sharing it, Bowman said they engage in lateral reading, which she described as “doing a quick Internet search to research the source of a post” and a method used by professional fact-checkers.

Given a random group of teenagers, Bowman hypothesized that they would be more likely to use much less effective ways of judging the credibility of a source based on factors such as website design or URL address.

“In other words, previous research shows that young people tend to rely on outdated methods or surface-level criteria to determine the credibility of a source,” Bowman explained. “If schools across the country implement high-quality news literacy instruction, I’m confident that we can debunk old ideas about how to determine credibility that are no longer effective in today’s information landscape, and instead teach young people science-based verification methods that we know the work.”

Be actively informed

Although conspiracy theories are common among teenagers, they are not necessarily armed with information to dissuade them.

Teens are divided on whether they trust the news. Just over half of teenagers said that journalists do more to protect society than to harm it. Nearly 70 percent said news organizations are biased, and 80 percent believe news organizations are either more biased or about the same as other online content creators.

A minority of teenagers—only 15 percent—actively search for news to stay informed.

The study also asked teens to list the news sources they trust to provide accurate and honest information.

CNN and Fox News received the most support, with 178 and 133 mentions, respectively. TMZ, NPR and the Associated Press were compared with 12 mentions each.

Local television news was most trusted, followed by TikTok.

Teens agree on at least one thing: a whopping 94 percent think schools should offer some level of media literacy.

“Young people know better than anyone how much they are expected to learn before they graduate, so for so many teenagers to say they are happy to have one more requirement on their already overflowing plate is a huge thing and a big endorsement of the importance of the media. literacy,” Bowman said.

In the study, students with any media literacy background performed better on the study’s test questions than their peers. They were more likely to be active news seekers, trust news outlets, and feel more confident in their ability to fact-check what they see online.

And surprisingly, students who receive media literacy in school report seeing more conspiracy theories on social media—perhaps because they have better media literacy skills.

“Teenagers with at least some media literacy instruction who follow the news and have a high

Those who trust the media are more likely to report seeing conspiracy theory posts on social media at least once a week,” the report said. “These differences may indicate that teens in these subgroups are more adept at detecting such messages, or that their social media algorithms are more likely to serve them such posts, or both.”