Abstract

Adolescents are increasingly engaging with social media, which has become a major source of information and communication in their lives. It now serves as a primary source of news for many teenagers, one third of whom report relying on social media more than any other medium to obtain new information (Ku et al., 2019). Many are concerned that the spread of misinformation on these platforms poses significant challenges to adolescents’ cognition and beliefs, which will in turn impact their real-world behaviors. Research has shown that a substantial portion of users have unwittingly shared false information online (Chadwick & Vaccari, 2019), and the algorithms designed to filter content often struggle to distinguish between factual and misleading information (Del Vicario et al., 2016). This essay examines the impact of exposure to misinformation on adolescents’ cognitive development and belief systems. It focuses on adolescence, in particular, due to its significance in cognitive maturation. Ultimately, it concludes by exploring some of the ongoing efforts of social media platforms to combat misinformation, before proposing that more could be done to protect younger users.

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