Generation Z is tech-savvy but media-savvy, new FMK research shows

Published: on 6.6.2025

The research on advertising literacy, i.e. the ability of individuals to recognise and understand advertising and its content, consisted of two parts. The qualitative phase of the research, conducted through media diaries, focused on the increasing prevalence of political advertising on social media.

The respondents were first-time users who repeatedly admitted that they had difficulty defining what political advertising actually is or how they could identify it. Some confuse it with ordinary political communication, others do not distinguish between propaganda, politicians' statuses and advertising.

Only 40% of respondents could correctly identify what the term 'advertising' means. Several responses suggest that young people approach political content as entertainment rather than entertainment. "Even though Generation Z knows digital tools with absolute ease, it doesn't mean they automatically understand digital content. Advertising, especially political advertising, is often presented today as a harmless entertainment format - but this is where the risk of manipulation arises, which young people are not aware of," says Ľudmila Čábyová, Dean of the UCM FMK and researcher of the scientific project.

Respondents perceived this type of advertisement as "another content in the feed", with no interest in the origin or context of the post itself. At the same time, it turned out that the term "misinformation" was familiar to many respondents, but as many as 47% could not indicate how they would distinguish it from opinion or fact. "A key conclusion of this research is that susceptibility to potential manipulation is not a matter of age. Generation Z, although they have already grown up in the digital world, clearly have problems critically evaluating the content they encounter," says Denis Javořík, a PhD student at the Faculty of Mass Media Communication at UCM in Trnava. Based on these findings, the research team decided to extend the research with a quantitative phase, which verified to what extent advertising recognition problems are widespread in the broader Generation Z population and how its representatives react to the specific formats they encounter on a daily basis.

The quantitative questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of 399 respondents between the ages of 18 and 25. This phase confirmed the shortcomings identified in the qualitative part. The biggest problem for Generation Z is native forms of advertising, which do not differ substantially in terms of visuals or content. The most problematic format turned out to be Instagram reels, where only 15.8% of respondents recognised the ad. "Reels" are currently the most popular format on Instagram, but at the same time respondents scored the worst here in terms of ad recognition. The content of ad reels is often the standard (entertainment) content also present in unpaid reels, which makes it significantly more difficult to recognise the ad," Javořík adds.

The research also found that young people are guided by the visual style of the content rather than the ad label when identifying an ad. They perceive the term "sponsored post" as a recommendation rather than a clear identifier of the advertising content.

Generation Z sees advertising as a natural part of the digital space and often does not think about who the advertiser is and why the content is being shown to them. This trend was particularly evident with influencer ads, where trust in a public figure took precedence over critical evaluation of the content itself. The research confirmed that despite Gen Z's technical prowess, this ability does not automatically transfer to content understanding. While young people naturally use digital platforms, they often lack the ability to critically evaluate what they are shown on these platforms.

Thus, the comprehensive research findings point to gaps in their level of advertising literacy. Strengthening media literacy education is therefore essential, especially in the context of the presence of native advertising content on social networks. Research Methodology: Qualitative research was conducted on a sample of 38 respondents aged between 18 and 19 years. The quantitative research was conducted on a sample of 399 respondents aged between 18 and 25 years.

The research was carried out within the project 09I01-03-V04-00004 Critical examination of media-related risks and opportunities for deliberative communication: scenarios for the development of the Slovak media landscape in the field of advertising literacy.