A new contender has entered the media ring.
Over the past three decades, the growing juggernaut of news consumption has been social media.
With just a brief morning scroll on the phone, people have been fed little bites and full course meals of events happening in the world in real time.
But recent studies have shown that a new contender is steadily rising to the occasion among young Australians.
Now, 28% of children aged 10-12 are using AI tools to ask about the news, with teens aged 13-17 rising to 41%.
The research comes from The Conversation, which has been running a survey every three years since 2017 to track how young Australians engage with news and media.
Up until now, social media was the crown jewel with 61% of teens using the platform.
Now it has dropped down to 41%, tying with AI.
The most likely reason could be pinned to the social media ban that came into effect in December last year.
Another reason could also be because it’s getting a hella of a lot easier to use AI for news consumption.
A simple search on Google will give you an AI summary of just about anything before you’re able to scroll down to relevant sites or news articles.
Anyone would know that this form isn’t always accurate, just as much as social media, so are children being equipped with the necessary tools to actually digest news media?
In the classroom, the survey found that 61% of young people discussed a news story in school in the past year often or sometimes, but only around a quarter, 26%, learned how to write, produce, or deeply research their own news stories.
In general, it was found that young people following up on news stories after hearing about it fell from 70% to 59%.
Australian teens have the right to be accurately informed just as much as the rest of all the other age demographics.
They are quite literally our future, and it’s been well documented that news engagement goes hand in hand with civic engagement in regards to current issues.
With A.I. news research is becoming more and more common, it’s important that schools and families teach their young to dive deeper, grab as many perspectives as possible, and go to genuine news sources for info.
For one, Happy Mag is a great place to start.
