The Climate Change Generation: Vocal but Overconfident? How Young Adults Who Overestimate Their Climate Knowledge Use Social Media and Engage With Others

Abstract

Research suggests that social media can cause users, especially young adults, to overestimate their knowledge about climate change. Knowledge overestimation may then lead users to communicate more frequently about climate change with others. We test these hypotheses with a four-wave panel survey of respondents aged 18–29 years. We find that social media exposure is positively associated with respondents’ tendencies to overestimate their knowledge about climate change, but we do not find causal effects. Overestimation is also related to perceived information overload, subjective digital literacy, and trust in social media comments. While overestimation did not cause higher outspokenness about climate change, it increased respondents’ efforts to persuade others and engage with politicians. These results have implications for science communication and education.