Romanian adolescents, fake news, and the third-person effect: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite their apparent digital literacy, adolescents often have trouble assessing the accuracy and trustworthiness of the information they encounter. Given the proliferation of fake news and that adolescents are new (or soon-to-be) voters, important issues arise for democratic processes. This study is the first to investigate Romanian adolescents’ self-perceived ability to evaluate the credibility of the news in their media diet. Drawing on a national survey (N = 1,221) of 12th-grade Romanian students (aged 17–18), we found a significant third-person effect in young people’s self-reported ability to detect fake news. This effect is stronger when people compare themselves to distant others than close others. We also found that the most important predictors of this third-person effect are gender, openness to multiculturalism, and lifelong learning, with family education and confirmation bias being non-significant predictors.