Weekly Insights
What Church Leaders Need to Know about Young People and Social Media News Trends.
Stat of the Day:
50% of Americans ages 18-29 reported that they had some or a lot of trust in social media as a source of information (Pew, 2022).
Why It Matters:
While young people are regular consumers of conventional news media, they also lean heavily on sources from social media outlets. This trend may have a significant effect on their understanding of current events, from local and national politics to international affairs. For example, 68% of teens and young adults ages 13-29 support the Black Lives Matter movement compared to 49% for adults over 65 years old. An example of such a skew on an international issue comes from a 2021 survey from the Jewish Electoral Institute. This survey found that a quarter of U.S. Jewish voters believed that Israel is an apartheid state but this figure jumped to more than a third for voters under 40 years old.
Though some of these shifts are likely due to other factors beyond social media engagement (Gen Z is on track to be the most racially diverse generation of Americans in U.S. history and so might be expected to generally support minority-rights movements), a great deal may be the result of widespread smartphone use to livestream current events. The 2020 revival of the Black Lives Matter protests was largely in response to the viral video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police and recorded by a 17-year-old on her phone. In the protests that followed, 146 New York City police were disciplined for use of excessive force and other violations against protestors, much of that behavior also documented and shared on social media.
What It Means for the Church:
Church leaders, especially those who are social-media-averse, need to be aware that a great deal of important news is being distributed through social media, and often only later picked up by more traditional news outlets. This sharing has had and will continue to have a major impact on young people’s understanding of current events, as demonstrated by the mass protests in 2020. Many young people are less interested in waiting for the official verdict (Derek Chauvin’s trial and conviction for murder took a year to work its way through the justice system) before they go online to discuss the matter and take to the streets seeking change.
But with the promise of a more-democratized form of documenting current events lies a major threat: deep-fake videos and misinformation being spread quickly online to distort or propagandize on behalf of malign actors. For example, AP reported earlier this week on a series of different doctored-videos in connection to the Hamas terrorist attacks and Israeli bombardment of Gaza that went viral on social media but were factually inaccurate. We should also note that many of these fake videos sought to inspire indignation about the actions of Hamas or the Israeli Defense Forces (that is, these videos are being intentionally circulated for political effect). Though war crimes have certainly taken place in Israel and Gaza, we should be careful about repeating especially outrageous claims until they are fully verified by relevant sources. For example, the “beheaded babies” story that the IDF has not confirmed is eerily similar to the story about Iraqi soldiers killing babies in a hospital in Kuwait before Gulf War I—and both stories serve a clear political purpose of exonerating in advance any reprisal actions.
What Can We Do?
Church leaders can model responsible social media news consumption by not reposting or retweeting the latest viral content until it has been verified by trustworthy sources. Furthermore, we can encourage young people in our congregation to be skeptical of some of these viral trends. Though many such videos are real, very little is lost in a more sober-minded investigation of the facts. Content that seems to easily support a good vs. evil bifurcation in favor of a specific political group should be investigated even more thoroughly, as it has a higher likelihood of being intentionally distributed by political activists (whether of nation-states or terrorist organizations).
Some Questions to Consider:
Does this content clearly serve the national security interests of my own or any other specific nation-state or political actor?
Does the content inspire an emotional response that might serve to motivate anti-social or violent behavior?
What other outlets are reporting this event, and has it proven true according to other reputable sources?
[Black Lives Matter protests fill the Ben Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, 2020]