A newsurvey by Harvard University finds more than two-thirds of young Americansdisapprove of President Trump’s use of Twitter. The implication is thatMillennials prefer news from the White House to be filtered through othersource, Not a president’s social media platform. Most Americans rely on social media to check daily headlines. Yet as distrust hasrisen toward all media, people may be starting to beef up their media literacyskills. Such a trend is badly needed. During the 2016 presidential campaign,nearly a quarter of web content shared by Twitter users in the politicallycritical state of Michigan was fake news, according to the University ofOxford. And a survey conducted for BuzzFeed News found 44 percent of Facebookusers rarely or never trust news from the media giant. Youngpeople who are digital natives are indeed becoming more skillful at separatingfact from fiction in cyberspace. A Knight Foundation focus-group survey ofyoung people between ages 14and24 found they use “distributed trust” to verifystories. They cross-check sources and prefer news from differentperspectives—especially those that are open about any bias. “Many young peopleassume a great deal of personal responsibility for educating themselves andactively seeking out opposing viewpoints,” the survey concluded. Such active research can have another effect. A 2014 survey conducted in Australia,Britain, and the United States by the University of Wisconsin-Madison foundthat young people’s reliance on social media led to greater politicalengagement. Social media allows users to experience news events more intimately and immediatelywhile also permitting them to re-share news as a projection of their values andinterests. This forces users to be more conscious of their role in passingalong information. A survey by Barna research group found the top reason givenby Americans for the fake news phenomenon is “reader error,” more so thanmade-up stories or factual mistakes in reporting. About a third say the problemof fake news lies in “misinterpretation or exaggeration of actual news” viasocial media. In other words, the choice to share news on social media may bethe heart of the issue. “This indicates there is a real personal responsibilityin counteracting this problem,” says Roxanne Stone, editor in chief at Barna Group. So when young people are critical of an over-tweeting president, they reveal a mentaldiscipline in thinking skills – and in their choices on when to share on socialmedia.