MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Information for young people becomes an instrument of identity. 60% use it to have fun, 59% to manage practical life and 55% to cultivate their curiosity through interests and passions, such as music (55%) or health and well-being (52%). Actuality (51%), local chronicle (43%) and Italian politics (40%) only affect if they touch everyday life, confirming the profile of a selective and pragmatic generation.
Compared to adults, young people show less interest in politics (-11%), chronicle (-15%) and topicality (-13%), but more attention to leisure themes (+20%) and study path (+19%). In their “information report” they live locally and globally: 53% look to the world, 47% remain anchored in the territory.
It is the picture that emerges from the focus “young people and information” of the GenerationShip 2025 Observatory of Changes Unipol, edited by Kkienn Connecting People and Companies, which analyzes behaviors, habits and perception of the information quality between 16 and 35 years. 80% of young people are informed online, compared to 45% still using offline channels.
Social media is now the main point of access to news: 46% use them to inquire, with Instagram (79%), YouTube (43%), TikTok (40%) and Facebook (41%) at first places. Traditional sources include television (43%), followed by online newspapers (35%) and radio (25%). Only 12% of daily paper laws, and just 5% consider them a primary source.
The Gen Z does not stop at social media: it uses them to discover news, but seeks confirmations on journalistic sources and accredited agencies. The young people spend on average 1 hour and 50 minutes a day at information (against 1 hour and 33 minutes of adults). A quarter informs more than 3 hours a day and 7% exceeds 5. However, 53% consumes passive information, exposed to a continuous flow of content coming from social, chat and search engines.
Disinformation is no longer a theoretical risk: it is a daily phenomenon. 81% of young people know what fake news is, but when you enter the merits of more sophisticated phenomena such as deepfake, information bubbles or polarization, awareness collapses.
Less than a young man out of two (44%) thinks he knows what the deepfakes are and only 37% of those who say it really understood the meaning. A fact that reveals a survivor of its digital skills: many believe they recognize a manipulated content, but it is often not so. The judgement of young people on the quality of information in Italy is insufficient: average grade 5,6/10. 44% of young people and 42% of adults speak openly of “information crisis”.
The main causes: political and economic pressure (14%), fake news (11%) and sensationalism (11%). For Fernando Vacarini, Head of Media Relations of the Unipol Group, “we live in an era of hyperconnection, where the challenge is not access to news, but understand who to trust. Young people remind us that the real theme is not the amount of information, but the ability to recognize its reliability. As a Unipol Group we have observed for years the behaviour and expectations of the new generations. Listening to them, understanding them and translating their vision into shared knowledge is part of our social responsibility.”.
-Photo IPA Agency-
(ITALPRESS).
