People with higher news literacy (critical thinking skills employed to judge the credibility of news) use social media differently, according to the Reuters Digital News Report 2018, choosing to rely less on social media for news while being more selective in the headlines they click on.

Compared to social media users with lower levels of news literacy, the report says savvy news consumers tend to weigh up three factors when deciding to read a story: the news brand, the headline, and the person who shared the story. Meanwhile the number of comments, shares or likes are more important to those with lower literacy levels.

It’s not necessarily a logical conclusion that less media savvy consumers are to blame for the spread of fake or low-quality news, says the report, because these kinds of consumers are less likely to share or comment on news themselves.

http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2018/overview-key-findings-2018/