If the only news you consume is what appears on your TikTok feed, Instagram reels or in an AI-generated summary, you are not seeking reliable information — you are waiting to be handed it.
In a political and social climate where policies shift quickly and global conflicts are constantly escalating, that laziness is risky. Passive consumption is not the same as being well-informed, and right now, too many students are confusing the two.
Social media platforms are not neutral pipelines of information, and they should not be treated as such. They are engagement machines. The longer users stay, the more profitable the platform becomes, and that incentive is what shapes what content rises to the top.
Tyler Kroon, Research Librarian for Engineering, said the responsibility to seek information cannot be outsourced to a feed.
“Seeking out information yourself gives you agency,” Kroon said. “It puts you in the driver’s seat. You decide what to search. You’re deciding where you’re going to click or tap. You decide what to read and what not to read.”
Typing a question into a search bar forces intention. It requires choosing words, scanning multiple headlines and deciding which sources deserve your time. A curated feed eliminates that effort entirely by deciding what appears first, what is buried and what disappears without you ever knowing it existed.
“There’s a phrase called echo chambers that is sometimes [used] to describe an algorithmically carved out area,” Kroon said. “You’ll see a lot of the same perspectives and the same ideas cycling through again and again, and you won’t hear outside perspectives.”
If students repeatedly see the same types of stories framed in the same way, it becomes easy to assume that is the full reality. The loudest and most emotionally charged content spreads fastest, not necessarily the most accurate or nuanced reporting.
“Content that performs best on social media is often divisive content, or sensational or emotionally provocative content,” Kroon said. “Algorithms reinforce that cycle because they see that a lot of people are interacting with this post and they’ll continue to push that out.”
The system rewards reaction as opposed to understanding. Outrage travels faster than context and quick takes outperform proper reporting. When students rely solely on what rises to the top of a feed, they are not seeing the world, but rather being spoon-fed what keeps them hooked.
Anne Burke, Associate Head of Learning Spaces and Services, said the shaping of feeds goes beyond obvious likes and shares. Even search engines are shifting toward summarizing information using AI before users ever click a source. Burke says that these AI summaries give people even less control.
“You don’t get a chance to take a look at all the individual sources,” Burke said. “[Information] is being digested and presented to you without your knowledge of the decision matrix that has gone into deciding what information to put in and what information to keep out.”
The more information is pre-packaged, the less practice we get questioning it and evaluating it ourselves, and that is exactly why seeking out information matters. It is not about rejecting technology or abandoning social media altogether, but about refusing to let convenience replace curiosity.
Being informed requires intention. It means visiting multiple news sites directly instead of waiting for a story to trend. It means checking whether a creator links to credible sources before accepting their claims.
It also means recognizing confirmation bias, the tendency to accept information more easily when it aligns with existing beliefs.
“When you see a piece of news or content that confirms what you believe, you are less likely to question it,” Burke said. “And that’s a really hard thing to get over. It’s very easy to question the thing that you’re already skeptical of, and it’s less easy to question the thing that you already believe.”
If students want to be better informed, they should start where they already have access.
NC State’s library system provides free access to databases like ProQuest, Nexis Uni and other academic news archives that go far beyond what trends on a feed. Instead of waiting for a headline to surface on TikTok, students can search for the full text of bills, track legislation and explore public records of federal law directly.
Seeking out information does not require deleting social media, but instead using the resources that are already available. Reading beyond headlines, following outlets outside personal comfort zones, verifying sources before resharing and intentionally searching for stories that are not trending are small but meaningful steps.
Being informed should be an active process, not a byproduct of doomscrolling. If information shapes understanding of the world, then seeking it out should be treated as a responsibility.
