High school students around the country struggle with the ability to find credible news in a society with social media. Students and faculty at Cape Henry Collegiate gave their opinions on modern ways of obtaining news.
“I think students who aren’t truly interested in what is happening in the world will not actively seek out information on current events, thus making them not as educated as a peer who finds joy or interest in reading the news,” senior Savannah Thorpe said.
The rise in social media has caused a frenzy for many people, however, it often targets young adults, typically high school students, who are just now beginning to understand the world as a whole. Social media can provide the user with many forms of communication and entertainment, but it can be dangerous.
“Social media is a blessing and a curse,” said Upper School government teacher, Scott McGraw. “Social media allows easier access to information than there was when I was in high school so it is easier to be well-informed than it used to be. On the other hand, many of the sources online are either unreliable or, at least, less than objective, so it’s hard to know what information to trust.”
Upper School students who immediately face this challenge gave their opinions on why they think that students now don’t seem to care much about what or where their information is coming from.
“Social media is an easy way to spread information, especially misinformation and I think people tend to believe things too easily without questioning whenever they see it on social media,” said senior Sarah Lewis. “They tend to trust someone who has a big following or someone others tend to find in their minds credible.”
Social media doesn’t always have to be a bad thing for information, at times high school students are not educated in school on the right ways to seek their information and how to do some credible digging themselves, so they tend to be more gullible.
“I think that social media greatly increases the probability of false news being spread by misinformed people,” Thorpe said. “However, people who are informed and are trying to spread awareness can use the media to do so. Sometimes it may be hard for younger, impressionable viewers to tell the difference between true and false information.”
For teachers that did not grow up being able to use cell phones and technology in order to obtain their news, they believe that because of how many sources are out there, it’s easier to gain many sides to a story.
“My biggest fear is not ‘fake news’ but news that is only partially correct,” McGraw said. “Completely fake news is usually fairly easy to spot and relatively rare. The bigger problem, in my opinion, is news sites that, while not reporting anything technically false, spin a story in a particular way to lead you to a particular conclusion without giving the whole story.”
There is no correct solution to this issue and many possible solutions can also have issues as well.
“I think that the only solution to prevent fake news from spreading on social media is a technology or criteria to post videos that fact-check before allowing someone to post,” Thorpe said. “If people have the ability to post information that may be false, social media can tag it as possibly not being true which I believe Instagram does at least.”
There is both gain and loss with social media and some high school students have trouble separating true information from false information, which leads to a massive divide in not just the United States, but the world. Education is not just about books and classes, it is about the bigger understanding of the world.
