Teaching critical thinking in digital space
American Psychological Association
At least 21 state legislatures have taken steps to reform K–12 media and information literacy education, with California, Delaware, Illinois, and New Jersey passing comprehensive reforms, per the 2024 U.S. Media Literacy Policy Report by Media Literacy Now. fThe largely bipartisan efforts are a response to challenges that most school curriculums do not yet address or teach—skills like sorting out what is true or false online, identifying when content is produced by artificial intelligence (AI), and how to use social media safely.
“We’ve all seen how the spread of online misinformation and disinformation is growing and that it has real-world consequences,” said Assembly member Marc Berman, JD, an attorney who represents California’s 23rd District and spearheaded the state’s digital literacy education law. “I can’t force adults to go back to school and take media literacy, but at a minimum, we can make sure that our young people are getting the skills they need for today’s world.”
People of all ages are susceptible to misinformation, but youth—who spend an average of 4 to 6 hours per day online—say they need help. In one survey of young adults in Canada, 84% were unsure they could distinguish fact from fiction on social media, the 2021 Youth Science Survey shows by Canada Foundation for Innovation. In another study from Stanford, Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning, led by educational psychologist Sam Wineburg, PhD, 82% of middle school students could not tell the difference between an online news story and an advertisement.
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