With the rampant spread of fake news and conspiracy theories, we should teach kids about misinformation
A June 2023 survey from YouGov, a British market research firm, found that American kids are more susceptible to misinformation than older adults, partly due to the fact that they spend more time online and, as a result, are exposed to more bunk. Illustration by Pete Ryan
MacLean’s
The Canadian wildfires were caused by space lasers? The U.S. government is run by lizard people? The COVID vaccines contain microchips? Nope, nope and nope. That all may seem obvious, but a surprising percentage of people believe such nonsense: an Abacus survey from June of 2022, for example, found that a quarter of Canadians think that it is possibly (14 percent) or probably true (11 percent) that COVID vaccines include secret chips designed to monitor and control their behaviour. Put another way, 3.3 million Canadians were pretty sure there were microchips in the vaccines and another 4.2 million were open to the idea. (To be clear: no microchips.)
It’s easy to mock these kinds of off-the-rails beliefs, but we shouldn’t. In my work as a professor and author, I’ve been researching public representations of science for decades—including how misinformation and pseudoscience are disseminated online—and I still need to remind myself to dial back the snark. People believe, share and act on harmful misinformation for complex reasons: maybe they’re under financial stress, or they’re experiencing mental health challenges, or they distrust government. But, these days, there’s also the problem of volume. Humans are bombarded with about 74 gigabytes of information every day, which is roughly equivalent to watching 16 movies. We check our phones more than 100 times a day. Plus, the incentives baked into our attention economy—likes, follows and retweets—are all rigged to encourage the sharing of questionable content. This ridiculously chaotic information environment could cause any adult to fall for things they shouldn’t.
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