Teenagers, Fake News and Misinformation

The Fake News issue has become rather intense recently and, despite the fact that it is not a new occurrence, the omnipresent use of online media, especially by young people, offers fertile ground for the quick spread of this kind of news. The aim of the present research paper is to show the sensitivity level and the attitude of students from four European schools (Greece, Finland, Germany and Spain) towards the existence of online, fake news and misinformation, their level of engagement in creating and reproducing it as well as their ability to make out true and verified information from fake. What comes out, despite demographic variations, is that youngsters, generally, get informed by online means and messaging apps which, however, they do not completely trust. They admit to coming across fake news quite often, they reckon motives behind them as well as possible dangers and threats, but they consider themselves able to track down.