Teens are uniquely vulnerable to mis- and disinformation. According to a 2024 study from the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit, eight in 10 U.S. teenagers say they see conspiracy theories on social media at least once a week. Of those teens who reported seeing conspiracy theories, 81% report that they believe at least one of them.
In a survey NCC conducted in 2025 of 16 parents, 73% said their teens had told them something that turned out to be misinformation, and every parent surveyed named misinformation as a concern.
We’re here to help.
We’re launching The Media Literacy Field Guide for Teens, a free 6-week newsletter course to give parents, teachers, coaches, and trusted adults the tools to teach teens how to spot misinformation online. Each week you’ll get a new email digging into an aspect of misinformation, how it uniquely impacts teens and how you can help your teen identify what’s real and what’s not online.
Over the six-week course, we’ll help hone you and your teen’s misinformation-spotting skills. By the end of this course, you will feel more confident in your ability to identify what’s real and fake online, and how to teach those skills to your teen.
The course will include deep dives into issues like the manosphere and techniques like SIFT that can help you and your teen discern what’s misinformation and what’s accurate. Each week’s newsletter will also include suggested language you can use to start a conversation with your teen about what you learned to help you pass on that new knowledge to them.
You can sign up for the course here.