Many Americans rely social media for news

Question

The Pew Research Center article titled "News Consumption Across Social Media in 2021" explains how Americans consume news on various social media platforms. It reveals that while a big portion of U.S. adults still get their news from social media, this trend has slightly declined compared to previous years. Facebook remains the most popular platform for news, followed by YouTube and Twitter, with younger users increasingly turning to Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat for news. Despite the frequent use of social media for news, the accuracy of information on these platforms is low. Most users consume news in short clips or snippets, rarely looking for in-depth analysis or other viewpoints, which can contribute to the spread of misinformation.

Answer 1

According to https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/#:~:text=Digital%20sources%20have%20become%20an,%25)%20and%20Rumble%20(2%25). at least 54% of the United States gets their news from social media. Due to having a continuously expanding and improving media, it is much faster and more convenient to gather news and information at the touch of a button. More and more generations are growing up on mass media so it only makes sense. Personally as an 18 year old kid, I get all my news from media and over time I have seen less and less newspapers in homes, including my 60 and 70 year old grandparents who always had the tableside news paper. Off of research and personal experience, I do believe it to be true that most people get their news from the media. Now not all news may be 100% accurate but that is why we research, use multiple medias and understand the news.

Comments

I like how you both affirm the claim but also offer the elaboration of using multiple medias to check our news. You make it clear that you agree with the given claim, with the caveat that just because we GET our news from social media, doesn't mean it's CORRECT, so while we can get our news from wherever we want, it's important to make sure that news is backed up appropriately.

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Just like with any type of media and form of news, it’s important to factcheck the news itself. That said I feel there would be a great amount of value in a study that checks the amount of misinformation in social media compared to other sources of news. I feel as if this article doesn’t address that so much and I feel that a larger discussion could arise from this study. If a larger portion of young people get their news from social media, shouldn’t we ensure that news is actually the most credible?