Since the turn of the millennium, many news outlets have shifted away from traditional reporting channels such as newspapers and television to appeal to society’s growing reliance on technology. Today, traditional media outlets have established substantial online presences, including the BBC, The New York Times and CNN. Because of this, online platforms and social media have become the major medium for news consumption, especially for younger generations.

This trend was verified in a study conducted by Pew Research Center which reported that the percent of consistent news consumption from TikTok was highest among 18- to 29-year-olds.

Sam Wineburg, Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History, Emeritus, at Stanford University, said many teens primarily rely on unreliable sources for news.

“My generation, and even a generation after my own, would go to major news sources, what’s referred to as the legacy media — New York Times, Wall Street Journal, even CNN,” Wineburg said. “These are not the places that are frequented by people of your generation. The vast (majority of) people are becoming informed largely through short form video.”

Freshman Drake Quiec is an example of this. Quiec said he generally does not consume media from traditional news channels.

“If there’s anything really important, honestly, I either go to the people around me or I search it up through Google,” Quiec said.

Data from the Pew Research Center supports this trend: social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok have grown significantly as news sources since 2020. 

The study found that, “just over half of TikTok users (55%) say they regularly get news on the site, up from 22% in 2020.”

Wineburg said that news from short form videos is generally created by people who the consumer has never met, differentiating it from the traditional friend-centric social media.

“Social media implies that you know the people that you are interacting with – that you are linked in with them in some type of social network,” Wineburg said. “The vast majority of content that’s consumed by your generation is created by content providers who you’ve never met and never met personally.”

Stephanie Kelmar, a parent of a high school student and founder of KidNuz, a news podcast for children, said these kinds of media formats leave room for the easy spread of misinformation.

“Usually in traditional media, in the old days at least, you’d have more than one set of eyes on a story, which can help with misinformation or disinformation,” Kelmar said. “In the wild west of social media, anybody can get on and share their opinion, which they can say is news or people might mistake for news, but there’s really no way to know if it’s true.”

And Wineburg said social media algorithms further the spread of misinformation.

“What determines virality are the number of likes and the nature of influence, rather than the ability to make statements that are based in factual knowledge,” Wineburg said.

Quiec said while he receives lots of political content on social media, he also said he values getting reliable information.

“I think (students) should get (news) from credible sources at least, so people are at least educated enough,” Quiec said. “But, I think social media is a better place for different opinions.”

Wineburg said the growth of misinformation online also affects people’s ability to stay open-minded.

“It’s a very disconcerting trend,” Wineburg said. “When we see something that we don’t like or that doesn’t comport with our prior views, the instinctual response is to say, ‘Oh, it can’t be real. It’s fake news.’”

Wineburg said social media can also intensify confirmation bias.

“When you look at TikTok or you look at Instagram, you notice that your feed starts to become narrow and narrower and narrower, and this is the way the algorithm essentially is configured to keep your eyeballs glued to the screen,” Wineburg said. “There’s a great deal of capitalistic incentive … which narrows us and makes us more polarized and exposes us to views that in many ways flatter what we already think, rather than exposing us to a broad swath of opinion.”

Junior Angela Fang said as a journalism student, she values keeping up with traditional news sources but has also noticed biased political content on her social media feeds.

“My social media is filled with a lot of political media and a lot of that is obviously very biased, in either direction, but I think it allows me to see people’s reactions to current events which is important,” Fang said.

Fang said she has also noticed how algorithms adapt to user’s personal beliefs and political leanings.

“For sure, when you’re seeing political content on social media, your algorithm is naturally going to send you media with the same ideas,” Fang said. “Of course, it is kind of like confirmation bias (so) I think it’s important to look at real news sources.”

Research from Boston University and Pew Research Center found growing political polarization in U.S. politics — the percent of people with consistently liberal or consistently conservative opinions doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21% — aligns with the rise of reliance on online news channels. 

Wineburg said this is particularly significant for teens. A Stanford study testing teens’ trust in sources found many struggle to identify the credibility of information on online platforms. 

The study reported that “96% of students did not consider why ties between a climate change website and the fossil fuel industry might lessen that website’s credibility. Instead of investigating who was behind the site, students focused on superficial markers of credibility: the site’s aesthetics, its top-level domain, or how it portrayed itself on the about page.” 

Wineburg said this challenges the assumption that teens’ familiarity with social media translates to stronger media literacy skills.

Because of this, Kelmar said efforts must be made to address the susceptibility of teens and adults to misinformation.

“There are a lot of people out there who don’t have any real media literacy skills,” Kelmar said. “Teachers should be talking about it in middle school and high school to teach kids how to spot fake news.”

Wineburg agreed and said school curriculum should incorporate media literacy more intentionally.

“We can’t blame your generation for not knowing how to do something that nobody ever taught them how to do,” Wineburg said. “California has a law for teaching media literacy, and the way that that law is generally enacted is to meet the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law.”

Wineburg said this problem can be addressed effectively by integrating digital literacy into the core school subjects, as some organizations have begun to do.

Following Senate Bill 830 passed in 2018 and Assembly Bill 2876 passed in 2024, both of which establish guidelines surrounding media literacy and AI in school settings, PAUSD has continued updating its AI NOW! policy which, among other things, addresses media literacy in education.

Beyond education, Wineburg said additional strategies could also improve media literacy.

“One is through policy and government — enacting laws and legislation to regulate some of the things that go on online and bring some pressure to bear on the platforms to essentially police themselves,” Wineburg said.

Additionally, Kelmar said it would be beneficial if traditional media outlets created platforms specifically targeting teens.

“If those outlets could find a way to put their news more online and put it out in a way that kids and teens gravitate towards to get their news, then I think it would be one step closer to ensuring that facts are getting out there,” Kelmar said.

And Wineburg said taking action is necessary to strengthen digital literacy education for younger generations.“Right now, we’re in a severe dip in the stock market of informed citizenship caused by the chaos of technological tools outpacing our ability to keep up with them,” Wineburg said. “So in terms of benefits, right now, we’re in a pretty dark time.”