Digital Literacy on Current Issues in Social Media: Social Media as a Source of Information

The digital age has shifted human information access to technological-based media. Smartphone, for example, is a technological product that provides quick access to the current information or news available virtually so that all Smartphone users can immediately get the information or news. The advancement of this technology-based communication allows internet users to promptly receive, send a comment, and share news with other users through social media such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Since social media, as part of internet media, provides the latest hot news, this study highlighted the use of social media in disseminating recent issues. The data were taken from the written news or information on WhatsApp, Facebook, or Instagram, and the questionnaires were distributed to internet users via social media. More particular research problems are what recent issues are disseminated on social media and how the digital literacy of internet users is related to the current issues posted on social media. Based on the result of the data analysis, it is found that 90.03 per cent of internet users access information through social media, and 81 per cent spend time searching for information on social media. Concerning the percentage of users of each social media, the findings denote that 38.4 per cent of users access Facebook, 20.2 per cent access WhatsApp, 18.4 per cent access YouTube, 8.3 per cent access Twitter, and 8.3 per cent access Tiktok. News of covid-19 vaccination and religious intolerance are the current issues that social media users access. However, the digital literacy of internet users is the main issue that hoax news about Covid-19 vaccination and religious intolerance are disseminated through social media.