Teaching Kids How to Validate Information on Social Media

Each year, as I prepare for my Media Literacy unit with my Freshmen, I scour my various social media timelines for examples of things to share with my students to challenge their critical thinking and research skills, and to spark discussions about their own experiences consuming media.

This year, an example came in my own Facebook timeline. A friend shared an image from reddit that took a jab at President Trump. It was worded in the same way as some of the conservative-leaning posts that my family members share on the platform (some of which I have traced to questionable origins).

Whenever I see these kinds of posts, which are intended to appeal to a particular emotion, I am skeptical. I might do a reverse image search, or click on the profile of the original poster, or look up the statement myself to see if it is accurate. In this case, I looked up what the post was claiming, and the first hit was a Snopes article.

I ended up posting the Snopes article under the post showing that it was false/exaggerated. In some cases, it might be better to privately message the author to avoid public confrontation or embarrassment. On the flip side, if the original poster does not decide to edit their post or take it down, then the falsehood continues to stay there, and has the potential to be shared again…