What predicts adolescents' critical thinking about real-life news? The roles of social media news consumption and news media literacy. (September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ku, Kelly Y.L.; Kong, Qiuyi; Song, Yunya; Deng, Lipeng; Kang, Yi; Hu, Aihua
• Is Part Of: Thinking skills and creativity. Volume 33(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-09
• Subjects: Critical thinking -- Adolescents -- Social media -- News; Thought and thinking -- Periodicals; Critical thinking -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Creative thinking -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Thinking -- Periodicals; Creativeness -- Periodicals; Teaching -- Periodicals; Pensée -- Étude et enseignement -- Périodiques; Créativité (Éducation) -- Étude et enseignement -- Périodiques; 370.15205
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tsc.2019.05.004
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1871-1871

Abstract

Highlights: We investigated 1505 adolescents' critical thinking about a real-life news report. Skeptical view towards personalized news recommendation, internal news motive and news source tracking predicted better critical thinking. Adolescents performed well in understanding news content, standpoints, and facts from claims; underperformed in evidence evaluation. Knowledge of news production contributed to critical processing of news information. Older adolescents were overall stronger critical thinkers than younger adolescents. Abstract: Critical thinking in the post-truth era demands that news users develop and maintain a skeptical way of knowing, and cultivate the ability to discern evidence-based and unbiased information to make sound judgments. While adolescents are becoming the most dedicated social media news consumers, the literature is yet to catch up with empirical research on whether adolescents are able to apply critical thinking to make sense of real-life news. We investigated the relationships between social media news consumption, news media literacy, and critical thinking of 1505 adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. Multivariate analyses suggested an internal news-seeking motivation, a cautious perception towards social media personalized news algorithms, and a reported habit of news-source tracking each independently predicted skills in thinking critically about a real-life news report. Hierarchical regression analysis further indicated the unique and combined variances of news consumption and news media literacy in predicting critical thinking in news. Insights for preparing our youth to become news-literate critical thinkers are discussed.