In the Era of Fake News, Teaching Media Literacy is a Must

My 13-year-old recently approached me at bedtime, a worried look on his face. “Is there going to be a draft for World War III?” he asked sheepishly…. He showed me thousands of videos kids had made. Most were meant to be satirical, I think, about being drafted. A quick search of the hashtag #WWIII showed that these videos had been viewed 1.2 billion times. That’s billion. I think he knew they weren’t real, but the idea still seemed to make him anxious.

After reassuring him that there wasn’t going to be a World War III or a draft for young men, I began to panic thinking about the billions of possibilities for young people who encounter wrong information on social media. —In the Era of Fake News, Teaching Media Literacy is a Must