Today’s young people are growing up in a world full of smartphones, texting, YouTube, Internet access, and instant entertainment and information. But while they may be media-savvy, we maintain that they are not necessarily media- or digital-literate.
Multiple studies have shown that many young people lack the media and information-literacy skills they need to be competent communicators in the 21st century. Many don’t venture beyond the top result when searching online and lack the critical skills to assess the validity of online-search results and identify the sources of information from both online and other media.
In this article the authors emphasize the need to foster media literacy in order to arm the youth with the necessary tools to be more comprehensive when it comes to accessing, evaluating, producing, and critically analyzing media and media messages.