New study shows social media dumbing-down news consumers

The digital dream darkens further.

A recent study by PEW Research Center, Journalism and Media (PEW) shows that news consumers who rely upon social media are less knowledgeable and less engaged than those who use other news sources.

“The analysis of surveys … finds that those who rely most on social media for political news stand apart from other news consumers in a number of ways. (They) tend to be less likely than other news consumers to closely follow major news stories … (and) this group also tends to be less knowledgeable about these topics,” according to PEW.

The study found that social media news consumers tend to pay less attention to news than those who rely on most other sources. As of early June 2020, just eight per cent of U.S. adults getting most of their political news from social media said they were following news about the election “very closely,” compared with cable TV (37 per cent) and print (33 per cent). This difference is alarming for democracy.

“This relative lack of attention to news goes hand in hand with lower levels of knowledge about major current events and politics … respondents were asked 29 different fact-based questions that touch on a variety of topics … Across these 29 questions, the average proportion who got each question right is lower among Americans who rely most on social media for political news than those who rely most on other types of news sources, except for local TV,” the study says.

Demographically, adults who rely most on social media for news are younger and have lower levels of education than those who mainly use several other platforms.

One study index measured political knowledge — high, middle, and low — against seven different source types; News website, radio, print media, cable TV, network TV, social media and local TV. Only 17 per cent of social media users scored high, compared to 45 per cent using news websites, 42 per cent radio and 41 per cent print media.

On six political stories, social media users demonstrated the lowest awareness of any group. Social media users were also far less engaged in the coronavirus pandemic coverage, and more likely to have heard about conspiracy theories and other false claims.

How large is the problem then? Another PEW study in 2018 measured social media news sourcing among 38 advanced and developing countries globally. It found that a global median of 35 per cent use social media to get news daily. About half say they never use social networking sites to get news.

Responding to the question “How often do you use social networking sites to get news?”, Canada ranked second highest among advanced nations with 42 per cent — behind South Korea at 57 per cent, and ahead of the U.S. at 39 per cent.

Facebook is the king of social media news, with 36 per cent of Americans regularly logging on to obtain their news.

The Shattered Mirror: News, Democracy and Trust in the Digital Age, is a landmark Public Policy Forum report published in January 2017. It looks at the state of a much weaker news media in Canada, severely disrupted by the digital age.

“The digital revolution has made for a more open and diverse news ecosystem — and a meaner and less trustworthy one. It has also upended the model of “boots on the ground” backed up by a second platoon in the office upholding such hallowed standards as verification and balance. Established news organizations have been left gasping, while native digital alternatives have failed to develop journalistic mass, especially in local news,” the report found.

Between 2010 and 2017, 225 weekly and 27 daily newspapers were lost to closure or merger.

“Anyone who views news as a public good will see that this decline damages civil discourse,” the report concluded.

According to “The State of Social Media in Canada 2020,” published by the Social Media Lab at Ryerson University — 94 per cent of online Canadians have a social media account, 83 per cent on Facebook.

There are only 75 remaining daily newspapers in Canada, with paid circulation just over 11 million copies weekly.

The age of post-truth couldn’t exist without the fact-free and emotive ecosphere of social media, wherein confirmation bias and selective exposure reinforce individual world views while dismissing contradictory information.

On social media, there is no one to fact-check the story.

As the most trusted man in America once said, “Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.”