The millennials seem to be missing a special trait when it comes to exploring online and being all tech savvy. A recent Stanford study concludes that young people, especially teenage netizens, are gullible and clueless in analyzing if a news is fake or not.
Beginning from early 2015, researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Education found out that students had a hard time distinguishing advertisements from news articles or identifying where the information came from. "Many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally perceptive about what they find there," said Professor Sam Wineburg, the lead author of the report and founder of SHEG. "Our work shows the opposite to be true," as written in the SHEG official website.
170 high school students were the subjects of the Stanford researchers. The researchers performed their experiment by sending them a hoax photo of mutated flowers allegedly blooming in Fukushima, Japan. One student responded that it does provide strong evidence because it shows how the small and beautiful things were affected greatly. Eighty percent of high school students accepted the picture as proof, according to NBC.
Based on their statistics, some 82 percent of middle-schoolers could not distinguish between an ad labeled "sponsored content" and a real news story on a website, as reported in a Stanford University study of 7,804 students ranging from middle school to high school in all 12 states. The study, set for release Tuesday, is the biggest so far on how teens evaluate the information they find online, according to Wall Street Journal. Students have been known to identify the accuracy and authentic value of a news article based on its content and its photo, not by the source.
"In every case and at every level, we were taken aback by the lack of preparation of students," the authors of the study wrote. Professor Sam Wineburg said that the researchers will include helping educators and curriculum development for teachers, as reported by CBS. The researchers also hope to showcase videos about the depth of the problem and demonstrating the link between digital literacy and informed citizenship.