The Crisis of Trust in Media and News Consumption Habits Among the Youth as a Challenge for Media Literacy Education

The Crisis of Trust in Media and News Consumption Habits Among the Youth as a Challenge for Media Literacy Education

Introduction

In the Slovak, broader European, and global context, there has been increasing talk in recent years of a "crisis of trust" in media, with university students and older adolescents (specifically aged 18–24) often appearing in these discussions as problematic recipients. They are perceived as a group that rejects traditional media, prefers social networks, and is allegedly extremely vulnerable to disinformation (Ferdeline 2021; Project 2022). However, surveys paint a more complex and, in a sense, paradoxical picture. While this age group declares low trust in established news media and draws information heavily from social networks, they are not completely cut off from traditional formats and, in many areas, retain the ability to realistically perceive societal events (Hajdu, 2018; UNICEF, 2023).

This paradox is fully manifested in the current Slovak context. According to the latest findings of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report (2025) for Slovakia, overall public trust in news has fallen to a historic low of 23% (representing a year-on-year decline of 2 percentage points). At the same time, for the category of young adults (18–24), social networks have become the primary source of news, with up to 36.4% of them citing them as their main information channel. At first glance, it might seem that this combination inevitably leads to a "catastrophic" loss of contact with reality (Sahut, Francisco, 2021). However, international and local studies suggest that university students are not merely passive victims of the online environment: they possess their own strategies for assessing credibility and exhibit a certain form of vigilance. Rather than a complete failure, it is a change in strategies and a regrouping of information authorities – from institutions to networks of relationships and specific influencers (Kiili et al., 2022).

To understand this change, it is useful to draw on the psychological concept of epistemic vigilance, as developed by Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier. This theoretical framework was first comprehensively presented in their joint study in the journal Mind & Language in 2010 and subsequently elaborated into an evolutionary cognitive mechanism in the book The Enigma of Reason (2017). According to the authors, humans are massively dependent on communicated knowledge, and therefore have developed mechanisms that guard the "input" of new information into their knowledge system (Mercier and Sperber, 2017). Epistemic vigilance involves both assessing the source itself (its competence and honesty) and assessing the content (logical consistency). Research shows that in university students, this mechanism is in a state of so-called hybrid vigilance – although they can cognitively work with semantic errors in a text, in the everyday digital flow they often succumb to surface heuristics and strong identity signals.

At the same time, it is necessary to connect this psychological framework with concepts of media and digital literacy. Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew (2019) in their groundbreaking research showed that while ordinary university students and even academics (history professors) intuitively prefer ineffective "vertical reading" (focusing on visual appearance, surface features of the URL, or "About" sections directly on the examined website) when evaluating online sources, professional fact-checkers use the expert strategy of "lateral reading" – they quickly leave the site to find out who is behind it and compare it with other independent sources. Subsequent experimental studies, however, confirmed that targeted pedagogical interventions (online modules) at the university level can successfully teach students this expert skill, thereby significantly strengthening their ability to critically assess online information and limiting their reliance on ineffective heuristics (Breakstone et al., 2021).

This review-conceptual article is based on the paradox of the current situation. The main argument (thesis) of the presented study is that the apparent failure of university students in fact-checking is not a consequence of the absence of epistemic vigilance, but rather of its specific form, which is shaped by the digital environment, algorithms, and social identity. The aim of the article is to theoretically anchor the concept of epistemic vigilance in the Slovak context, connect it with the modern concept of lateral reading, and subsequently propose a specific pedagogical model for the university environment that will strengthen young people's resilience to disinformation.

Literature Review Methodology

The presented study is conceived as a review-conceptual article. In this case, the literature search serves not only for a descriptive mapping of the issue but represents a systematic tool for synthesizing theoretical knowledge from several disciplines (psychology, media studies, pedagogy). The goal of this synthesis is to build an argumentative and theoretical foundation for proposing our own pedagogical model applicable in the university environment. The search for relevant literature was conducted primarily in the academic databases Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. In the search, we used combinations of the following keywords in English and Slovak: "epistemic vigilance" (epistemická vigilancia), "lateral reading" (laterálne čítanie), "media literacy" (mediálna gramotnosť), "trust in media" (dôvera v médiá), "misinformation" (misinformácie), and "university students / older adolescents" (vysokoškolskí študenti / starší adolescenti).

Selection criteria and monitored period: The monitored period for the theoretical anchoring of key concepts was not strictly limited, as it includes fundamental works and theories (e.g., Sperber et al., 2010). However, for empirical studies on youth behavior and media consumption, we focused exclusively on current research published between 2018 and 2026. The selection included peer-reviewed scientific studies and experimental research focusing on cognitive processes of information verification and pedagogical interventions. Conversely, studies primarily examining younger children (under 15) were excluded, as the target group of our article and pedagogical proposal is exclusively older adolescents and university students.

Use of grey literature: A specific feature of this study is the deliberate use of so-called grey literature and international or local research reports (e.g., Reuters Institute Digital News Report, CEDMO data, Eurobarometer, GLOBSEC). Including these sources in the review was necessary for precisely anchoring theoretical concepts in the current Slovak reality. While the standard publication process of scientific articles is time-consuming, the mentioned reports provide the most current and accurate quantitative data on the historic decline of trust in media in Slovakia and on changing trends in youth media consumption (e.g., the shift to social networks and influencers), to which our pedagogical model directly responds.

For a clear methodological distinction of the nature of the contribution, the text is structured into three logically interconnected levels. The first level consists of a systematic literary synthesis of existing knowledge on epistemic vigilance and media behavior. The second level represents our authorial interpretation of students' cognitive limits and heuristics in the digital environment. The third level is our own conceptual pedagogical proposal. It is important to emphasize that this proposal currently represents a theoretical model derived from the synthesis of knowledge, which aims to serve as a basis for future systematic empirical verification in practice.

Table 1: Parameters and criteria of the systematic literature review

Source: Own processing

Theoretical framework

Epistemic vigilance in older adolescents

Epistemic vigilance represents a key concept for understanding how people process communicated information in an environment where they depend on sources beyond their own direct experience (Sperber et al., 2010). According to the theory of Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier, which their later work builds upon, it is a set of evolutionarily developed mechanisms that protect mental representations from the entry of unreliable or misleading knowledge. Epistemic vigilance has two main components: assessing the source (competence, sincerity, benevolence of the communicator) and assessing the content (internal consistency, logical coherence, alignment with existing knowledge). This dual mechanism explains why people are neither blindly credulous nor completely closed to new information – vigilance is adaptive and contextually modulated (Mercier and Sperber, 2017).

Table 2: Structure of epistemic vigilance according to the type of assessment

Source: Own processing

In older adolescents and university students, epistemic vigilance manifests in specific ways that reflect cognitive development and the social environment. Experimental studies show that this group is already capable of selective trust: the more semantic errors (factual inconsistencies) they identify on a website, the less information they draw from it and the more selectively they choose sources. Unlike younger children, who are strongly oriented by surface features (typos, grammar), older adolescents work better with content aspects – contradiction of claims, logical weaknesses, or inconsistency with prior knowledge. This shift supports the hypothesis of a developmental continuity of epistemic vigilance, where adolescence brings the ability for more sophisticated processing of information content (Brown and Gummerum, 2025).

Nevertheless, significant limits remain. Even older adolescents react strongly to visual and aesthetic heuristics: sites with a "professional design," engaging graphics, or high popularity (number of shares, comments) are automatically perceived as more trustworthy, even if they contain errors. This effect is even stronger in the digital environment of social networks, where algorithmic recommendations and social signals (peer reactions, influencers) modify epistemic vigilance. Research thus suggests that in university students, it is a hybrid form of vigilance: cognitively mature under controlled conditions, but in everyday practice influenced by identity and social pressures (Avci et al., 2025; Brown and Gummerum, 2025; Swamy et al., 2024).

The connection with media and digital literacy enriches this framework. Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew (2019) showed in their groundbreaking research that while ordinary university students and even academics (history professors) intuitively prefer ineffective "vertical reading" (analyzing the website from within) when evaluating online sources, professional fact-checkers use the expert strategy of "lateral reading" – they immediately leave the page to verify it in other sources. Subsequent experimental studies confirmed that targeted short pedagogical interventions (online modules) can help students acquire the basics of this expert skill and gradually modify their evaluation habits (Breakstone et al., 2021). In the Slovak university context, such an approach could operationalize epistemic vigilance into practical skills.

For contextual documentation of current trends, it is important to note that in the Slovak environment, this trend is even more pronounced. Media reports, such as the Digital News Report 2025 for Slovakia, note a decline in overall trust in media to a new low of 23%, with decreasing scores for most monitored brands, while young people strongly prefer local news via social networks and newspapers, although many regions suffer from a lack of local news. In 2024, the trend towards mobile and on-demand consumption strengthened among young people, where social networks are growing as a daily source of information, but trust in unverified content remains a problem – young people often perceive them as relevant, even though the content is not factually verified (Chlebcová Hečková and Smith, 2024; Mediaklik.sk, 2023; Mediálne.sk, 2023).

While the mentioned reports illustrate overall trends in consumption, empirical findings from qualitative and experimental studies reveal how adolescents actually evaluate information. Their direct comparison of the credibility of different sources confirms a hierarchy: scientific and expert sites are rated highest based on criteria of author expertise and quality of evidence, traditional media are rated medium (brand reputation, journalistic ethics), and social networks are rated lowest as a platform, although specific profiles of influencers or peers receive higher scores. Qualitative studies reveal that when evaluating online texts, university students argue with a combination of factors: "Who is the author?" (expertise), "What are their motives?" (commercial vs. independent), "What are the social responses?" (likes, comments). In practice, however, rapid visual and social heuristics often dominate – professional design, virality, alignment with group opinions (Freeman et al., 2020; 2023; Kiili et al., 2022).

Own strategies represent a hybrid between informal vigilance and intuitive shortcuts. Cross-referencing sources ("I checked it elsewhere too") is applied mainly for important topics (health, politics), where "it matters." In the daily information flow, however, social networks dominate: they rely on friend recommendations ("a buddy shared it"), the authentic tone of influencers ("it doesn't look like sponsored content"), and contextual relevance ("it fits with what I already knew"). Although these strategies are not systematic, they functionally allow them to navigate the information surplus without a complete collapse of reality. For pedagogical work, it is crucial that these informal mechanisms – although imperfect – form the foundation upon which targeted skills of lateral verification and source reflection can be built (Kupka, 2025; Trend.sk, 2024).

Students' willingness to apply more critical and systematic verification strategies is often hindered by a specific cognitive bias, which Martínez-Costa et al. (2022) define as the so-called "nobody-fools-me perception." This involves an overconfidence in one's own ability to detect disinformation, which is paradoxically very high among young people and individuals with higher education. This phenomenon is closely related to the third-person effect – university students are convinced that false information will be believed more by "others" (for example, older generations), while they themselves consider themselves immune thanks to their digital skills. This subjective feeling of infallibility and technological superiority ultimately reduces their actual epistemic vigilance and creates a cognitive barrier to adopting expert techniques such as lateral reading.

Pedagogical Intervention: How to Strengthen Epistemic Vigilance in University Students

Based on the preceding literature synthesis and our authorial interpretation of the identified cognitive limitations, we present in this section our own conceptual proposal for a pedagogical model. Pedagogical interventions aimed at epistemic vigilance in university students must be based on their existing strategies and the context of university study, where we already assume a certain degree of autonomy and expertise. Integration into existing courses (e.g., media studies, pedagogy, journalism, cultural studies, social sciences) allows for effective incorporation of training without the need for separate subjects. The key is to operationalize epistemic vigilance into practical skills that build on the theory of Sperber and Mercier and the empirical findings of Wineburg and Breakstone. These modern expert strategies, primarily lateral reading and click restraint, were first comprehensively defined by Wineburg and McGrew (2019) as key practices of professional fact-checkers, who, thanks to them, read less but find out substantially more about the credibility of a source.

Table 3: Comparison of Verification Strategies in the Digital Age

Source: Own processing based on Wineburg and McGrew (2019) and Breakstone et al. (2021)

Targeted training in working with sources is the first pillar. Students learn to systematically ask three questions: "Who is the author and what is their competence?", "What are their motives (to inform, sell, mobilize)?", "What is the nature of the medium (public service, commercial, amateur blog)?". While this theoretical framework defines the procedures, proven empirical experimental interventions show that after such instruction, university students tend to evaluate less reliable sources more critically and more frequently refer to expert websites. In media studies courses, this can be implemented through short exercises: students analyze specific websites (e.g., an article about a social network vs. an academic portal) and discuss source criteria in groups (Felton et al., 2023; Pérez et al., 2018).

Working with semantic errors and content addresses weaknesses in deeper text processing. Training includes identifying logical contradictions, inconsistencies with verified facts, and hidden biases in argumentation – instead of focusing only on visuals or typos. Practically: students compare two texts on the same topic, identify semantic errors, and discuss why one source selectively omits information. Such tasks strengthen selective trust and reduce the influence of aesthetic heuristics (Brown and Gummerum, 2025; Ma et al., 2026).

Accuracy prompting, slowing down sharing, and working with emotions utilize short-term but effective tools. Before sharing content, students receive the prompt "Check accuracy before sharing," which, according to several findings, helps reduce the willingness to spread misleading content. In courses, this works ideally through reflective journals: students analyze their own feed, name the emotions that lead them to share, and practice a "pause" for verification. This approach is particularly effective because young people are significantly more sensitive to issues of solidarity and responsibility towards the community. Surveys show that this group most frequently supports environmental initiatives or social justice (Eurobarometer, 2022; EIB, 2024). Appealing to their values creates a stronger motivational framework for responsible online behavior (Goh et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2025).

Co-design and participatory activities make the training authentic. Students co-create materials about source verification, thereby strengthening their perception of their own competence. Such activities transform students from passive recipients into "epistemic agents" (Lewis et al., 2024; Orosz et al., 2024). Integrating these elements does not require major changes: 2–3 exercises per semester are sufficient. Effectiveness is supported: short interventions increase the number of verification steps and reduce the sharing of misinformation (Pérez et al., 2018).

Discussion and Limitations

The presented pedagogical model shows promising possibilities for developing epistemic vigilance in university students. However, it is also necessary to reflect on its limitations and the broader technological-societal context in which it is implemented. The first major challenge is the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT). As Grupač et al. (2024) experimentally demonstrate in the context of media communication, AI technologies today can extremely effectively generate both visually and semantically coherent content. Concurrently, however, Pošteková and Brisudová (2025) warn of the critical risks of this phenomenon for media literacy: AI systems not only suffer from so-called hallucinations, but the massive generation of deepfake outputs poses a serious threat to disinformation, which directly requires fact-checking from multiple credible sources. As a result of these changes, traditional heuristics and checklist methods are definitively losing their effectiveness. Vigilance focused solely on content is no longer sufficient in the AI era. This technological change underscores the necessity of our proposal: lateral verification of the reputation of the source itself outside its original domain becomes a key competence of media literacy.

In addition to technological challenges, the cognitive level of the students themselves, specifically their reading comprehension ability, also represents a barrier to the proposed model. Research (Brodsky et al., 2022) shows that students with weaker reading skills have difficulty acquiring the habit of lateral reading because they cannot effectively evaluate and synthesize information from multiple searches. Any pedagogical interventions must therefore account for the fact that without fundamental reading literacy, the development of epistemic vigilance will be significantly limited.

However, the application of these cognitive strategies in practice is subsequently further significantly complicated by the phenomenon of information overload. According to a 2025 CEDMO study, up to 64% of Slovaks suffer from information overload and media fatigue, representing the highest proportion in Central Europe. In a state of cognitive exhaustion, it is extremely difficult for an individual to activate so-called "slow thinking" and utilize lateral reading. Future educational interventions must therefore take this factor into account and seek ways to motivate students to be vigilant without deepening their digital fatigue.

Specific risks related to students' digital safety are also associated with the proposal to transform students into active disseminators of media literacy. If university students begin to publicly oppose disinformation and fact-check, they may themselves become targets of cyberaggression, trolling, or organized attacks. The peer-to-peer education model must therefore be necessarily supplemented in the university environment with modules focused on digital safety and wellness, so that students know how to protect their own integrity.

A serious risk in teaching epistemic vigilance is the possibility of unintentionally deepening students' general cynicism towards all information institutions. As Goodsett and Gagich (2025) point out, if we teach students only to deconstruct and question sources, an extreme degree of skepticism can grow into a pessimistic worldview and a rejection of any authority, including science or standard journalism. Pedagogical interventions must therefore, alongside training in lateral reading, necessarily include building an understanding of how quality information is created. By explaining so-called bias filters – such as strict editorial standards, institutional control, or peer-review processes – we can build in students an awareness that, although no human creation is flawless, objective criteria of quality exist. The goal of education must therefore not be merely the destruction of trust, but above all, teaching how to invest trust wisely and rationally.

In conclusion, it is important to emphasize that placing the entire burden of the fight against disinformation solely on the shoulders of the education system and users themselves is unsustainable. Individual cognitive vigilance must be supported by systemic measures and a legal framework. In this regard, the European Digital Services Act (DSA) represents an important pillar, bringing pressure for platform transparency and the protection of minors in the online space. An effective solution to the issue of disinformation therefore requires a systematic interconnection of educational interventions with the application of legislative measures.

Conclusion: From "Catastrophe" to Opportunities

The crisis of trust in media among young adults and university students, often interpreted as a fundamental failure of media literacy, proves to be a simplified interpretation of a more complex change. The paradox of low trust in traditional media alongside the dominance of social networks is not evidence of their epistemic failure, but rather a manifestation of the evolution of information strategies – from institutional trust to relational trust, and from vertical verification to a hybrid mix of heuristics, social signals, and selective vigilance. University students are not "digitally illiterate," but actors in an environment where epistemic vigilance is modulated by algorithms, value identity, and microsociality. This situation is not a definitive failure, but above all a challenge for pedagogy: how to transform students' informal and ineffective strategies into systematic expert competencies.

Identity as a path to epistemic vigilance offers a key motivational framework. University students exhibit exceptional sensitivity to issues of prosocial values and community responsibility. Research shows that this target group strongly inclines towards protecting vulnerable groups and engaging in social issues. Pedagogical interventions that appeal to this value identity – for example, by emphasizing the fact that responsible information sharing directly protects vulnerable groups – create a much more authentic motivation for epistemic vigilance than abstract warnings against disinformation. Connecting responsibility for information with prosocial behavior transforms passive consumers into active and responsible actors in the information space.

Participatory model: Students as epistemic agents – the participation of university students in training epistemic vigilance for younger adolescents – closes this transformative cycle. University students, students of media studies, are not merely recipients of pedagogical action, but its partners and subsequent disseminators. This approach fully reflects current trends in digital transformation, in which, as Filip (2025) states, the young generation no longer acts only as a passive consumer, but primarily as an active co-creator and interpreter of digital content. Through the co-design of educational materials and peer-to-peer activities, they become "epistemic agents" who operationalize learned skills directly in practice. This model creates a double effect: it strengthens the key competencies of university students (especially the habit of lateral reading and source reflection) and simultaneously replicates these proven strategies among younger individuals, thereby building generational continuity of media literacy.

The challenge of the "crisis of trust" thus transforms into a unique pedagogical opportunity. The proposed integrated interventions directly into existing university courses – such as training in lateral source verification, semantic analysis, accuracy prompting, or a targeted appeal to community responsibility – represent a theoretically grounded conceptual model that aspires to serve as a functional tool for systematically building epistemic resilience. However, its actual effectiveness and limitations in the Slovak university environment will need to be subjected to systematic empirical verification in the future.

Based on the synthesis of theoretical arguments, contextual data from media reports, and verified empirical findings, we can conclude that the stated goal of the article – to theoretically anchor the concept of epistemic vigilance in the Slovak context, connect it with the concept of media literacy, and propose a specific pedagogical model for the university environment – has been successfully achieved.

Authors: Martin Vahančík, M.A. Mgr. Adam Chovanec Institute of Mediamatics and Cultural Heritage, University of Žilina

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