Scroll Smarter: Helping kids find news

February 10, 2026

Artificial intelligence

Feb. 10, 2026

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in this issue

Family Q&A | Top story | Bonus reads | Video of the month | Reader roundup

An illustration of a child and a parent reading a newspaper together.

Serving up a healthy news diet

Question:

How can we motivate our kids to get news from a variety of sources when it’s so much easier to get it from social media?

— Need more news

Answer:

It’s ironic that in an age in which we have unprecedented access to diverse, high-quality sources of information, we have to be more intentional than ever about getting it.

A 2024 News Literacy Project survey of American teens found that 83% say they typically get news on social media. Is this a bad thing? It depends. If your kid follows credible, standards-based news organizations and journalists, and interacts with their posts, they can train their algorithm to push more quality news into their feeds.

But it’s still important not to rely on social media as a primary channel for news. Here are some tips and strategies for reinforcing a healthy, balanced news diet at home:

Make intentional time for news each day. It’s important to be proactive in getting news. Create a routine that includes deliberate time — even just 15 minutes a day — dedicated to looking at news sources, whether it’s a newspaper, news website or app, or a news broadcast on TV or radio. Make one day a deeper dive by subscribing to and making time to read the Sunday print edition of your local or regional paper.
Gamify staying informed as a family. Use a portion of time together to compete with family members in staying informed. Take a weekly news quiz, or see who can stump everyone at the dinner table with a news story they all missed. Or have everyone fill out a news diary entry and vote on who selected the most impactful, relevant story from the last week.
Reflect on algorithms. Remind your teen that while they can create a social media feed that includes a lot of high-quality news, they’re still only seeing posts the engagement algorithm predicts will keep them scrolling — not necessarily those that are the most newsworthy.
Use News Literacy Project resources like this newsletter, our infographic “Seven Steps for Staying Sharp Online” (also in Spanish) or our new information ecosystem poster to help navigate your way to actual news reporting, not influencer summaries or commentary about news.

➡️ Do you have a question for us? Share it in this form and we may answer it in a future issue. We can address questions about artificial intelligence, social media, journalism, misinformation and more in a family-oriented way.

⭐ You’ll win swag from the News Literacy Project if your question is picked!

Questions may be edited or rephrased for clarity and length.

Landmark social media trial underway

Are social media platforms intentionally designed to be addictive for children, ultimately harming them? That’s the question at the center of a landmark trial against major tech companies.

What to know:

➡️ A 19-year-old California woman, one of thousands of plaintiffs, alleges that she became addicted to social media as a child, leading to depression and suicidal thoughts.

⚖️ The defendants in this closely watched trial are Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, and Google, owner of YouTube. TikTok and Snap settled ahead of the trial.

🎰 The lawsuit claims platforms borrow “behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry” to maximize engagement and profits.

📱 This lawsuit focuses on the addictive design of social media, not the content.

What you can do:

💬 Talk to the kids in your life about how they’re using social media and manage screen time limits together. In addition to asking them about what they see online, ask for their observations about how the platforms work: what devices and features do they think are designed to keep them scrolling or to bring them back to the app?

ℹ️ See this infographic for more ideas to start a conversation and for safety tips for teens using social media.

🤳 ‘Sharenting’ with care: Proud parents often share about their kids online — known as “sharenting” — but posting can pose privacy and safety risks for children. Caregivers can minimize harm by blurring or covering children’s faces in photos or sharing information in private messages with trusted friends and family (CNET).

✍️ Rebuffing the bot: This Texas teacher is using simple tools to keep AI bots out of her classroom: pencils and paper (NPR).

📵 Beyond bans: As legislatures attempt to address the impacts of digital life in real-world classrooms, at least 33 states have restricted cellphone use in schools. Some are at the same time passing laws that require media literacy education (Education Week).

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Two Truths and AI: Which Bruce Lee video is legit?

Bruce Lee remains famous for his amazing displays of athleticism, but online creators are using AI tools to create fabricated depictions of the martial arts master “performing” unbelievable stunts.

Watch this video with your family and join in on the game. Can you spot which video was made with AI?