On January 6, my phone was inundated from every news outlet, all in a matter of seconds.  The same thing happened when Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested and Derek Chauvin was sentenced.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, Daily Mail, TMZ, BuzzFeed...

Which one to follow?  Where to click?  The answer, it turns out, all depends on your age.  For 43% of Millennials and Gen-Zers, social media is the first choice.

Phone-based news is by far the most popular platform for Millennials and Gen-Zers to share and opine exhaustively over their favorite social media platform.  YouTube, Facebook, TikTok — all are coveted services that deliver the world's daily news to our younger generations.

There is just one problem, and it is a big one: social media can quickly turn into a game of telephone.

Untrustworthy sources, random users playing judge and jury online — it becomes all too easy to confuse when fact and fiction become swayed by the court of public opinion.  After all, responsible journalism has frequently been lacking.  How else does one explain the behavior of our media?  Many publications hardly bother to hide their true affiliations, instead discrediting an entire industry with their lazy, convoluted reporting.

This blatant bias abuses public trust, and the impact can be deadly.  When you don't receive accurate factual information from trustworthy sources, that can easily mean the violent incitement of hate today.  Misunderstandings can start wars, and today, social media have become our greatest weapon.

With Millennials and Gen-Zers, it is simply hard to gain an audience otherwise.  A study from the Reuters Institute and University of Oxford calls our younger generations "a group that is of great interest to news publishers around the world, but also one they are finding it increasingly hard to reach."

This is largely because these groups look to one another when clustered together on the same social media platform.

Younger generations do not have the life experience yet to understand the bigger playing field of politics — they look at an issue and are rightfully incensed.  Still, they cannot always see the bigger picture or why, instead, sometimes caution, patience, and love should light the way.

"There is a reason why we do not see 20-year-old politicians sitting in Congress," comments Michael Letts, a former law enforcement officer and the owner of InVest USA, an organization supplying law enforcement with bulletproof vests.

It is dangerous to have just one opinion, as we have seen repeatedly throughout history.  However, social media have shown us that too many opinions can also cloud the pool of judgment, quickly turning fantasy into reality and rewriting history in real-time.

Instead, we must have balance, and that is what some in the Millennial media have yet to understand, hopefully before it is too late.

Lena Muhtadi Borrelli spent time in finance, marketing, and hospitality with a diverse professional background before settling into full-time life as a freelance writer.  She has written for TIME, Investopedia, MSN, Bankrate, Onerent, and TV Guide.

CONTACT: Jerry McGlothlin 919-437-0001; jerry@specialguests.com.

Image: PxHere.