School survey: 47% of students follow Russia’s invasion on Ukraine through social media

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has caused a cyclone of news and media – utilizing one of the most rapid tools for communication on Earth: the Internet.

In the past week, adults and teenagers of the United States have demonstrated solidarity with Ukraine, despite residing across an ocean from Europe: altering their profile pictures and banners on social media to include a blue-on-yellow flag, and sending relief funds online through Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). With this in mind, we set out to discover what high school students in the United States knew about the invasion, and their thoughts pertaining to it.

The study we conducted is not intended to reflect the overall American population, but rather a group of high school students we interviewed locally. On Friday, March 4th, during our lunch break, we conducted a survey at our school.

As a reward for completing our online survey, we gave each respondent a dum-dum lollipop. In total, we received 79 responses from students ranging from 14-18 years of age.

Additionally, we organized a couple interviews with high-school students whom we selected in order to elaborate more on the subject matter.

Without a strong foundation on the historical context of the invasion, many younger individuals may be at a higher risk of being influenced into holding certain opinions.

This is further exacerbated by acquiring the majority of their information through social media, which is littered with difficult to avoid misinformation.

When asked if they have seen social media posts detailing the present situation in Ukraine, an astounding 93.7% of young people responded affirmatively: From missile shells hurtling into residential houses to a livestream camera setup that enables people all over the world to watch as a nuclear power station come under fire, the Internet has made conflict observable from virtually anywhere.

Arguably, if the Vietnam War was dubbed the “first television war,” and the Arab Spring was labelled the “first social media revolution,” Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is soon gaining its own epithet: the “first social media war”.

With the younger generation consuming social media on a daily basis, Ukraine’s conflict will continue to be extensively documented, filmed, reported and chronicled on mobile phones, allowing for an uncensored view of the invasion.

Through these pieces of media, many have formed their own opinions towards the invasion. “I have seen a few videos of what’s going on in Ukraine…what’s happening is just heartbreaking…that these innocent people are being attacked,” a student stated during one of our conversations.

“It’s sad to see what’s going on over there,” observed another.

Evidently, in our poll in our poll about the influence of this media on youth  the most often expressed feelings towards the conflict in Ukraine were sadness, anxiety, and anger.

Especially interesting was the spread of donation links for supporting humanitarian aid and relief in Ukraine, along with social media posts. When asked if they had donated to one or multiple of these funds, only 8.9% indicated they had. When asked about the speculated legitimacy of some of these funds, 57% expressed that they were unsure of which relief funds were trustworthy.