Two of the most important kinds of information we look for online are about health and science: almost half of Americans, for example, report seeing science content in the previous few weeks, and a third follow a science-focused page or account online. However, nine in 10 Canadians, have seen misinformation on at least one of those topics.
If you’ve found that the source is reliable enough to be worth your attention, you can now read it more critically.
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
In fact, half of us pay more attention to who shared a story with us than where it originally came from.
Everywhere we turn, we’re hearing about artificial intelligence (AI). We already know AI is all around us – algorithms are suggesting what to watch and tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are being used to generate the content we’re seeing. But how many of us actually understand what algorithms even are? And if you’re a parent, guardian or teacher, are you prepared to teach youth how to use AI responsibly?
On the internet, it can be hard to tell what’s true and what’s false—but we have to make a lot of decisions based on how reliable we think things are. In Reality Check, you’ll learn how to find clues like finding where a story originally came from and comparing it to other sources, as well as how to use tools like fact-checking sites and reverse image searches.
Probably the most essential factor in accurately and objectively judging health and science information is to understand how science is done.
Two important ideas relating to teens are the imaginary audience and the personal fable. The imaginary audience makes them overestimate how much attention other people are paying to them. This makes them more self-conscious and leads them to think of privacy primarily in terms of impression management – trying to control how others see them. The personal fable makes teens see themselves as the main character of a story and, as a result, leads many to believe that bad things will simply not happen to them.
They say the future comes when you aren’t looking. This Media Literacy Week, we are reflecting on how the pandemic has changed how we interact with media and each other. Certainly a few years ago, not many of us could have imagined we’d be spending a fair portion of our lives doing video chats, which were considered obsolete and mostly reserved for keeping in touch with friends and family far away.
One of the hardest things about being a responsible sharer is to be aware of your own biases, the reasons why you might be more likely to believe something without evidence. These are aspects of the way we think that can lead us to accept false statements, reject true ones, or simply not ask enough questions.