A recent study by the U.S. National Science Foundation, spearheaded by Michigan State University researchers, has found that teens and Millennials have a healthy skepticism of what they read on Twitter. The study used false information disseminated to college age participants to see how their memory was affected. False memories from a fake Twitter-style feed would prove that participants believed what they were told, however, the opposite happened and the students were less likely to register the false posts as truth.

Researchers felt this was a good sign, helping young people to distinguish between truthful sources and false ones. Twitter has 230 million users and is consistently popular with teens and twenty-somethings. Scientists felt that students were considering the means by which information is disseminated as well as the content itself (Mark Prigg, “Do You Believe Everything You Read On Twitter? Researchers Find Teens Have ‘Healthy Distrust’ of Tweets,” The Daily Mail at DailyMail.co.uk, May 14, 2014).

“Consider the source,” is age-old wisdom that applies to any medium through which we receive knowledge or information. A good reputation in this regard helps us to become conduits of truth, in our case, God’s true way of life. The apostle Paul puts it this way, “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful,” (1 Corinthians 4:1-2, NKJV).

If we have a history of truthfulness and reliability rather than a tendency to lie, our ability to represent God’s way is strengthened. We become better friends, family members, neighbors, and servants of God.