American high school students today care way more about the First Amendment than adults.
The Knight Foundation’s 2014 Future of the First Amendment study, which polled 10,463 high school students and 588 teachers, found that nine out 10 said people should be able to express unpopular opinions and six in 10 said the press should not be censored by the government.
Most high school students said that First Amendment rights should apply to their school activities, while the majority of teachers disagreed. Students werefar less concerned than the adults about the privacy of the personal information they give out on the Internet, but overwhelmingly believes that their electronic communications should not be subject to government surveillance or tracked by businesses.
For the first time in the 10-year period of the study, the high school students showed a greater appreciation for the First Amendment than the adults. This is a role reversal.
Today, only 24 percent of students said that the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, but 38 percent of adults hold that opinion. Back in 2004, 35 percent of students felt that way and just 30 percent of adults shared those feelings.
The Knight Foundation believes these findings are the result of “the digital age.” In 2011, Connecticut researcher Ken Dautrich found “a clear, positive relationship” between social media use and support for free expression. He now finds the same link between digital media use overall and the First Amendment.
Students who got the majority of their news online and spent the most time on social media valued the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment on a greater level.
