The way in which Americans get their news has significantly changed in recent years. According to News Use Across Social Media 2017, as of August 2017, sixty seven percent of Americans get some news on social media. This use has increased increased among older, non-white, and less educated people.
Pew Research indicates that Facebook still leads every other social site as a source of news. This probably due to the fact that sixty-six percent of Americans use Facebook. While grandma and grandpa are looking at the latest pictures of their grandchildren, they also take some time to get updated on news events around the country. Despite viewing news on Facebook, this baby boomer age group is still very likely to watch local and national news on television. This is probably due to the fact that they grew up watching the news every night at dinnertime so it is a habit for them.
Additionally, the use of Instagram and Snapchat has increased among nonwhites and younger people for accessing news while Twitter and LinkedIn has the largest share of college graduates who gain their news from those sources. According to Pew Research Center, as of August 2017, forty three percent of Americans get their news online.
With all of these news sources available to us, it is important to realize just how much of the information is fake news. According to a survey by Ipsos Public Affairs for BuzzFeed News, about seventy five percent of Americans who see fake news believe it. This is from an online survey done between November 28 and December 1, 2016. One would think that this would be true of only older Americans who aren’t familiar with social media or how to navigate on it. But a survey of students in February 2017 to test their knowledge of fake news found that they were just as vulnerable to fake news as the older generation. Of 4,072 students who took part in the survey, about half of students identified sources of news that they relied on that are often classified as misleading. Based on these findings, it was recommended that schools and districts develop some type of courses to teach students how to identify fake news.
Why are students vulnerable to fake news? A study was conducted by Eszter Hargittai and her colleagues at Northwestern University to see how college students gathered information from Google. The results were that students tended to use the first site that came up after searching on Google; they ignored the sources and organization and just blinded trusted that the first one was the best source to follow. Along the same lines, research was done at Stanford University to test responses from 7,804 students ranging in age from middle school through college and it was discovered that all had some degree of “blind faith” when it came to Google searches and felt that they could trust any source that came through as “.org.”
In order to successfully navigate the web and not be mislead by fake news, one needs to become a fact checker due to the sophistication of websites that are motivated to claim our attention. Fact checkers read Google laterally rather than vertically. They don’t merely trust the first site that comes up. They evaluate what the site says about itself and don’t just take it for granted that what it says is true. Fact checkers look past the order of the search results and dig deeper into the sources to see if the information is real. If the story seems outrageous, it probably is just that--outrageous and should not believed or shared with anyone.
Perhaps we need to think of ourselves as consumers of the news and understand the importance of our responsibility to discern what is real and what is not. With the increase of social media and greater numbers of people using it every day, it is vital to use these sources wisely. Certainly it is important for schools and educators to teach students how to differentiate between what is real and what is not and this should be an important part of any curriculum. With older adults using Facebook in growing numbers, the spread of fake news is likely to increase simply because they cannot navigate as easily on social media. The only way to prevent this from spreading is through education of the public. Only then will we be able to ensure that only the correct information is available to everyone.
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