What sources of information do zoomers trust on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

The dramatic changes in our daily lives have had a huge impact on the behavior of not only adults, but also young people. The number of coronavirus infected among young people in Russia is increasing every day, according to official authorities, the main reason is a violation of self-isolation. Generation Z, they are also “zetas” or “zoomers” - young people born from 1995 to 2010 often perceive the information broadcast by it differently and trust its non-traditional sources, unlike the older generation.
Khisam Communications, a communications agency, conducted a study interviewing more than 100 young people aged 18 to 21 to find out what sources of information the Russian “zoomers” trust on the topic of the coronavirus pandemic.

The study showed that for the first time young people learned about coronavirus from the media (55%) and social networks (31%), to a lesser extent from their work or school (8%), as well as from friends or family members (6%). Moreover, as the source of the most trusted news, the leading position is occupied by social networks (31%), followed by the official channels of WHO (26%) and traditional media (12%).
 
 
From the traditional media, as the source of the most reliable information on the coronavirus COVID-19, popular news publications were attributed: Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru and others (25%) and business media: Kommersant, Vedomosti, Forbes, Inc, etc. ( 19%), as well as news agencies: TASS. RIA, InterFax and others (18%). At the same time, about 16% of respondents said that they did not follow the news at all, and to the channels of official authorities, for example, the website of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (covid19.rosminzdrav.ru) or regional authorities - the website of the Mayor of Moscow (mos.ru/city/projects / covid-19 /) trust only (9%) and (8%) of respondents, respectively.
 
Of the social networks and instant messengers with the most reliable information about the coronavirus, the survey participants chose the popular social networks Vk (30%) and Instagram (16%), as well as the Telegram messenger (44%).
 
The main sources of information about coronavirus in social networks and instant messengers with a high level of trust included thematic posts on social networks (22%), channels of official regional or federal authorities on social networks (21%) and instant messengers (16%), as well as pages of experts on social networks (13%) and channels of experts in instant messengers (12%). Anonymous socio-political channels are trusted only (9%) of the respondents.
 
Khisam Communications CEO Taufik Khisamov commented on the results of the survey: “Today we can observe an increase in the number of cases not only among adults, but also among young people. The lack of discipline in adhering to the regime of self-isolation, coupled with a lack of confidence in official sources of information among young people amid the spread of fake news around the coronavirus, can only aggravate the situation, perhaps it is literate awareness-raising in generation-Z language through reliable communication channels that will allow avoiding further escalation of the spread of COVID-19."