A new reality based in fiction
Since the dawn of the internet era, online news has been present in our everyday lives. There are websites dedicated to international news, economics, entertainment, innovation, and science, with content created by everyone from high school students to professional media companies. But in this age of technology which continues to advance, how do we maintain a clear distinction between fact and fiction?
According to a study done by Stanford History Education Group, “Young people’s ability to reason about the information on the Internet can be summed up in one word: bleak.” This phenomenon can perhaps be attributed to an omnipresent concept called “clickbait.”
Clickbait is internet content that is hyperbolically provocative or unusual, with the goal usually being to attract visitors to a website or to amass a large number of views.Websites like Buzzfeed often use this tactic when they employ titles like, “You’ll Never Look at Barbie Dolls the Same Once You See These Paintings.” These stories, while sometimes far-fetched, are able to catch people’s eyes due to their outrageous titles and content. As entertaining as they may be, the problem with these articles arises when it becomes difficult to distinguish between clickbait and real, factual news.
As the “digital generation,” we have grown up with the internet. We use it, we love it, we trust it. But is it possible that we are too trusting? We have no trouble sifting through the slew of information in our news feeds, but recent studies have shown that we are having trouble deciding how much of that information we should trust.
“Many assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally savvy about what they find there,” the Stanford researchers wrote. “Our work shows the opposite.”
According to the study, students from middle school, high school and the college level had a difficult time distinguishing between reputable news sources such as Fox News and knock-off sources. Even more shocking, only a quarter of high school students understood the significance of the blue “verified” checkmark on social media sites.
This just goes to show that you can’t trust everything you see online. Younger generations need to learn to be more skeptical of the information they find on the internet. Getting into the habit of cross referencing a news story with another reputable media source can make all the difference. Chances are, the daisies with nuclear birth defects you read about on Facebook are a Photoshopped hoax.
Luckily for many of us, Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are taking steps to regulate their sites to prevent untrustworthy news sources from using their feed according to the Wall Street Journal. That may not be enough to get rid of false information, but it’s the first step.
Photo by Mariah Bridgeman.