Research shows that teenage students ages 13 to 18 are more distrustful of the news than previous generations, a skepticism that is impacting what they consume and their ability to discern fact from fiction.
When asked about their news habits, 50% of teens said the “news finds me” (meaning primarily through social media), 15% reported actively seeking out news, and 36% said they don’t keep up with news, according to a 2024 survey by the News Literacy Project, a national nonprofit organization that provides resources for K-12 students.
Teens are broadly wary of the media. Eighty-four percent expressed negative sentiments when asked to best describe news media in another News Literacy project survey. Among the terminology they used: “fake,” “false,” and “lies.”
News consumption habits can prevent teens from getting a complete understanding of important topics. And those limitations are revealed when students talk about news issues and can’t have a deeper conversation about them, said Peter Faustino, a licensed school psychologist in New York and Connecticut and a former president of the National Association of School Psychologists.
Teens’ reliance on one source—social media—has made them more distrustful of traditional news sources, but not necessarily because they’re presenting bad information, said Faustino. The algorithm on social media has teens consuming the “same story, the same sound bites, the same talking points,” he said. So when they are presented with “different information or a different perspective, it immediately leads to a distrust or mistrust of the new information that isn’t in [their] confirmation bias,” the school psychologist added.
One potential strategy that experts point to as a means to help teens discern fact from fiction is promoting media literacy. That means teaching students to approach information with a healthy skepticism, but not to the extent that they don’t believe anything they see, said Pamela Brunskill, a senior director of education design at the News Literacy Project.
Many young people aren’t paying attention to if what they’re seeing is “news or propaganda or entertainment,” she said. For many online users, “they’re all equal in terms of how you take in the world.”
Why there is a growing distrust of the news amongst teens
Children are born skeptical, says Andrew Shtulman, a professor of psychology at Occidental College in California. That general skepticism continues to develop until eventually children learn to trust information rather than reject it.
But today’s generation is growing up in a world in which there is greater access to information and much of it is not true. “Skepticism is now more prolonged because as young children go to social media and explore the internet, they’re surrounded by information that is, in fact, false,” said Shtulman.
Today, for many young people, “that early skeptical stance is not shaken; if anything, it’s reinforced,” he said.
Another complication is that many teens today aren’t circulating online information among their peers based on whether it’s accurate or meaningful.
“They base their judgments of sharing on the emotional appeal of the story,” said Shtulman. “That doesn’t help with the kinds of implicit beliefs and implicit attitudes you might form if your friends are knowingly sharing information that they themselves think is false.”
Schools’ role in students’ distrust and misinformation
The role of schools is to foster deeper conversations and discuss the sources of information from different perspectives, as part of building students’ digital literacy, many advocates and researchers have said. Yet efforts to do that are often complicated by educators’ wariness of getting drawn into divisive, politicized classroom conversations, EdWeek reporting shows.
The volatility even encompasses the sources they use when addressing topics in class, said Tina Ellsworth, president of the National Council for the Social Studies.
“When [President Donald Trump] is bashing legitimate news sources, then teachers get nervous that they’re going to be critiqued for using those news sources, even if they’re highly credible ones,” said Ellsworth.
His recommendation when it comes to digital literacy is for schools to focus on the reliability of sources, said Shtulman. He acknowledged that doing that can open a “hornet’s nest,” given accusations of fake news and growing doubts about the credibility of online sources.
“Now when you come across the story, you have to do a little bit of investigating,” he said. “It’s a new set of skills that adults in the past didn’t even have to develop.”
Brunskill of the News Literacy Project said that one entry point for schools is asking students what they are seeing on their individual news feeds. Students can keep track of news stories coming to them for a week and pay close attention to their credibility.
“Always start with the kids’ lives,” Brunskill said. “Make it authentic.”
