Schwarze und lateinamerikanische Jugendliche berichten, dass sie im Vergleich zu ihren weißen Altersgenossen über deutlich bessere digitale Kompetenzen verfügen, beispielsweise im Erkennen von Online-Desinformation – insbesondere bei Inhalten, die sich auf Rasse und ethnische Zugehörigkeit beziehen
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2026/02/02/black-and-latino-teens-show-strong-digital-literacy
26 Kommentare
> These youth are not only quicker to identify false claims and racist propaganda, but also more likely to verify posts with credible sources and respond with corrective, fact-based content, the study found. According to the researchers, these skills are not being taught
>The findings showed a clear pattern.
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>Many Black and Latino participants were more likely to challenge racist content by crafting their own social media posts that called out false information and by sharing articles from reputable sources to counter divisive narratives, the authors found.
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>“These teens are often doing this work for their communities,” Epps said. “It’s very possible they’re posting accurate information about social justice movements or correcting harmful stereotypes because they feel a sense of responsibility.”
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>The results suggest that the lived experiences of minoritized youths appear to make them savvier online.
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>“They keep their eyes open and are hyper vigilant,” Epps said. “They have absorbed these skill sets from having to navigate a world where a racial microaggression could happen at any time. So, it makes sense that would translate to their digital spaces.”
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>White youths were less likely to question misleading posts concerning race.
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>“This isn’t because they are less intelligent, but because they haven’t had to be as vigilant. They aren’t the targets of digital racism in the way that youth of color are,” Epps said.
[Racial-ethnic differences in adolescents’ daily enactment of critical race digital literacy skills: A daily diary study – Avriel Epps, Matthew Coopilton, Devin English, Brendesha M Tynes, 2025](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448251404416)
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It’s not surprising given that the average white person is subject to far, far less systemic prejudice and violence compared to their nonwhite peers. Privilege breeds complacency.
We “fact check” things that we disagree with, and tend to just accept the things that agree with our existing views. Most of our culture is geared towards white folks, so a white teen isn’t going to see much to “disagree with” on an average day.
„As part of this initiative, more than 100 Black adolescents, alongside comparable numbers of Latino and white peers, were asked to report daily in dairies how often they analyzed, responded to, or ignored race-related digital content. Tynes and her research team collected these data, and Epps used them for an analysis that revealed racial differences in what the study defines as Critical Race Digital Literacy, or CRDL.“
Makes sense
It’s easier to close read, engage critically when you are not the intended audience – you are more detatched.
The headline is misleading. They were asked to self report on their experiences and how they react to ONLY racial disinformation.
Thats it. This headline uses misleading wording to make it seem that Black and Latino teens are more digitally literate.
> this 7-day daily diary study found that Black and Latinx youth reported significantly higher daily frequencies of practicing critical race digital literacy skills than their White counterparts.
Not surprised to see this difference in engagement. Now I’m curious if this translates to better skills in practice at recognizing disinformation. Hoping to see a follow-up study on that!
Im sorry, but are they saying that they demonstrated this digital literacy or that they are claiming to have it? If the teens are simply self reporting, well everyone thinks they’re a good judge of character, but it often tends to not be the case.
Not saying its not true, seems intuitive, but just unclear on the methods.
I read the article, an important note :
The way “misinformation” was measured wasn’t based on an objective coding of content accuracy; it was instead embedded in participants’ self-reported critical engagement within a broader Critical Race Digital Literacy framework. This means results are best interpreted as reflecting perceived and enacted critical responses rather than precise misinformation detection accuracy.
There’s also many things wrong with the study that I won’t go into too much detail about.
I can believe it. I’ve seen Black and Latino people run off of places or serially harassed by racists. Given how much that this kind of harassment relies on misinformation this is not surprising.
I had a mutual who straight up left because the background radiation of whiteness was just too much.
I’m white but if you pay attention you’ll realize that many people who aren’t white experience a torrent of racist abuse for merely existing online.
All the Latinos that voted for Trump would seem like a good counter argument…
This seems well beyond anything that could be considered scientific.
This is a statistical analysis, highly subjective in both its source data and methods.
While I’m not disputing the claim, I respectfully don’t think this belongs in science. (EDIT: Because it isn’t.)
Least surprising study results ever
The Somalians are not eating dogs as the rich white president says and sprout from a government elect position.
Somalians who were the target of such disinformation have to be more digitally savvy versus the white people who are being fed „white replacement theory“
Heck, the worst thing white people thought was offensive was being associated as being deplorables by a woman.
I normally don’t comment here but… I have to ask, what did this study do right? Because so far, I’m seeing that is nothing at all. The title irony with the actual content being racial discrimination and misinformation is certainly something else.
Sounds North American to me.
Is this a typical study design? They asked teens to keep (if I’m understanding correctly) a daily log of how and how often they responded to race-related online content. Surely that’s some heavy-handed prompting?
I report having significantly more sexual experience than anyone else who has ever lived
>Critical content creation and action
>This scale assesses participants’ frequency of creating critical content and engaging in online activities related to that content. Example item: “I created content (like Instagram stories) to educate others about people of color.,”
How is this a measure of digital literacy? I may be wrong but I would expect the average educational content created by a white youth about people of color would be received incredibly badly, even with very positive intentions.
>this 7-day daily diary study found that Black and Latinx youth reported significantly higher daily frequencies of practicing critical race digital literacy skills than their White counterparts. Enactment of these skills also varied by day of the week and was reported more on weekdays than on weekends.
This is from the abstract of the actual study. I’m not sure how much weight we should give to **self-reports** of practicing „critical race digital literacy skills“.
“As part of this initiative, more than 100 Black adolescents, alongside comparable numbers of Latino and white peers, were asked to report daily in dairies how often they analyzed, responded to, or ignored race-related digital content. Tynes and her research team collected these data, and Epps used them for an analysis that revealed racial differences in what the study defines as Critical Race Digital Literacy, or CRD”
So really all this study proves is black and Hispanic teens are more likely to engage with race based content on social media? And that the data used is self reported diary entries by teenagers?
No wonder we have a massive push against “science” based decision making.
White privilege hates this one trick…. A solid study that proves it exists.
This definitely won’t be biased
Over estimation of one’s own abilities is a well understood science at this point.