Anyone who spends any amount of time online, and on social media in particular, cannot help but become bombarded by news stories, opinion posts, expert video breakdowns of whats really happening all around us.
So much of this shared virtual space seems dedicated to breaking down and reconstructing the political structure, to shared and re-shared monologues on the state of the nation, long chains of opinions and facts blurred together and passed again and again throughout the information network, facsimiles of facsimiles of facsimiles
I am reminded in all of this of a famous quote, one I found online, by president Abraham Lincoln: Dont believe everything you read on the internet.
Misinformation tactics, fake news on social media, political propaganda networks bent on pressuring the publics vision of reality consistently enough that they cant help but start conforming: these are not new subjects.
Get people to start using your words, and they will start sharing your vision, a strategy as old as political cynicism.
We probably dont need this reminder.
We certainly dont need to be told that social media is bursting with dubious content.
And yet
As has been variously reported and consistently suffered anecdotally, online misinformation spikes during election seasons.
Both internationally and domestically, bad faith actors fill the various media ecosystems with deceptive, self-serving informational junk food.
The kinds of stories and reports that push on the pleasure centers of our brain, exploiting our worst instincts and clogging the bloodstream of our democracy.
When given the option to consume easy media narratives that prove us right and them wrong and that taste like sweet retribution and savory political comeuppance, we often cant help ourselves; or rather, we dont know any better than to say no.
Online media literacy is the kind of skill that has only existed for several decades and has been widely important for even fewer.
The phrase fake news entered the public discourse sometime during the previous presidential election cycle, but instead of keying us into a heightened awareness of the way we consume media, it largely did the opposite, giving us permission to reject information we dont like as fake in favor of information we do.
Social media platforms like Facebook, meanwhile, have been designed specifically to cater to these impulses.
To a large extent, its not anyones fault that the majority of the population doesnt have this newly necessary skill of digital media literacy.
How could we?
Not that media literacy (i.e. the ability to evaluate the context and trustworthiness of things like news stories and published opinions) is something weve never cared about.
But the scale of the issue online takes proportions and evolves at rates that are difficult to fathom.
You cant blame someone for never being taught to swim, but in a world quickly filling with water, we will survive or perish depending on our ability to learn.
And thats just it, isnt it?
The existential threat of it all. This is an issue that affects the stability of our democracy, of our global ecosystem.
But perhaps most tangibly important, it threatens our local community.
One thing everyone can probably agree on is that the divisions between us and our neighbors are higher, more personal, more spiteful.
We feel like were all out to get each other, and we often are. Those political gotchas on Facebook, the pit in our stomach when someone we care about signals support for the other side, these small moments have the ability to consume entire days at a time.
We can turn away from the issue entirely, get off the social media grid, go offline.
This feels like an increasingly appealing solution, something Facebook has recently mimed with its decision to ban all political advertising on the platform up through the presidential election.
But this seems unlikely to be effective as a widespread solution. Its hard to change the course of history by appealing to the past.
The other option, then, is widespread learning.
Schools across the country have increasingly focused on these kinds of skills, and I can say from my own experience teaching college composition courses, digital media literacy has taken a central role.
Recent studies have indicated that younger age groups are less likely to share false or misleading news stories.
But in a world verging on ecological collapse, we ought to worry whether this improvement is happening quickly enough.
What else can be done to address this issue?
One helpful shortcut Ive found is to turn inward rather than outward, that is, to acknowledge the three proverbial fingers pointed back at us whenever we point out the shortcomings of others. In practice, this means recognizing when a political news story makes us feel good.
Its always a good literacy practice to learn to be especially skeptical of the ideas we most agree with.
This is how misinformation thrives and spreads, packaged and presented as exactly what we want to hear.
Were naturally less skeptical of things we agree with because, well, we already know were right.
And because we know were right, we tend not to worry if we might be wrong.
Instead of immediately sharing that news story, that monologue from the expert, repeating the opinion we heard on our favorite talk radio show, we might want to reflect on this reflex and realize just how little thought we put into the matter.
It usually isnt all that much.
We come to see how much more were focused on winning the argument than getting to the truth or resolving the issue at hand.
We realize the world is a bit more complicated than wed like it to be, and though that can be scary and paralyzing, we ought to know and try better.
It goes without saying that, though digital media literacy is an issue within contemporary politics, it is not a political issue.
This is a human behavior issue, and as we are all human, this is an issue we all face.
It is wrapped up in instincts we cannot eliminate but can at least monitor and keep in check.
Personal awareness of our media habits might seem like a small solution in the face of such large, existential problems, but its one of the few ways to make a direct and individual impact.
On its own, it probably isnt enough, but its something.
Von P. Wise II is a freelance writer formerly of Lock Haven. He can be contacted at vonpwise@gmail.com
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