Band 6+: The increasing reliance on social media for news consumption has led to a decline in critical thinking skills among young adults. What are the reasons for this trend, and what solutions can be implemented to promote media literacy and responsible online engagement?

The rise of social media dependency for news consumption among adults in their early 20s have affected how they use their critical thinking. The reasons for this situation are caused by how fast people received information without checking the credibility or validity and also how easy our society is to be manipulated. Therefore, the steps to fix this situation can be done by doing double verification and gain more informations from several platforms.

First of all, the role of technology has been affecting our generation for decades. The faster we can access information, the more subjects we can narrate and consume. Thus, people who lack critical thinking will just believe everything they see without needing reassurance from another platform such as conventional books, journals, etc. Moreover, our society also tend to trust news only from one resource which can be biased. For instance, when we look through Israel and Palestine conflict, there are so many news that tend to be proactive only to one country without having the critical thinking such as making double checking through history books and historic journals.

As being mentioned before, this phenomenon should affect people’s awareness on how to consume news wisely. It can be done by not always believing the first time they read news but instead try to also look from other perspectives. Other that that, comparing resources also is a crucial step to do since we can be more objective about what the news delivered. For example, when we read something in the news that mentioned a new virus, instead of believing a hundred percent and end up being paranoid, we can try to do our research using our critical thinking such as looking for ways to preventing it and how much people got affected already.

In conclusion, the rising numbers of people not being aware of their critical thinking when it comes to absorbing sources on social media is undeniable. This situation is caused by the lack of time investment when it comes to doing research about the news and how society can easily be lied to. However, it can be fixed by checking verification twice and be open to research from several media.