One in three teenagers, regardless of gender, cannot detect fake news. And girls show lower self-confidence than boys when it comes to assessing their own critical reasoning skills.
These are the findings of the report “Disinformation at School”, conducted by a team of UniSR researchers coordinated by Professor Carlo Martini, Associate Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Faculty of Philosophy, with the support of the European Research Council project PERITIA (Policy, Expertise and Trust).
The results concern the first phase of the study, conducted between January and May 2023, involving 19 secondary schools and 2,214 students aged 14 to 19.
The aim: to understand how capable adolescents are of recognizing false or misleading information and distinguishing it from reliable, high-quality content.
Based on the collected data, the researchers have now launched the second phase of the project: the establishment of a Permanent Observatory on Digital Disinformation, starting in January 2025, which will include training programs for high school students.
The investigation, focused on web browsing via smartphones and social networks, was carried out in a simulated environment designed to closely replicate the digital information landscape that young people navigate daily. In this environment, where scientific information and disinformation coexist, students were asked to assess the reliability of different content.
The outcome: about one-third of them mistakenly judged reliable information as unreliable. According to Professor Martini,
this happens because we live in a “polluted” information environment which not only spreads false beliefs but also blurs the clarity of reliable information.
This can create a “generalized skepticism that makes us increasingly reluctant to trust science—the very foundation of our society.” For this reason, “raising awareness of adolescents’ digital critical capacity—since they are our future—and equipping them with effective tools to accurately evaluate news means safeguarding that relationship of trust which underpins the essential bond between science and society.”
