Healthy Skeptics

Do you believe everything you read? Do you believe everything you see on the internet? Do you believe everything you hear? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need a refresher course on being a 'healthy skeptic.'

Edutopia published a great blog post last week called "Teaching Adolescents How to Evaluate the Quality of Online Information." You can check out the entire post HERE.  It's an interesting read based on a survey of middle school students. In brief, students believed anything they found relevant to their search. If it sounded like it related to their research, they believed it to be true. They rarely took time to consider credibility or author perspective.

Adolescents aren't the only ones that that fail to critically evaluate information! I see that regularly on Facebook and other social media sites. About one week after the horrible disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, somebody I know shared a news story that the plane was found. The article included a floating plane picture where people were being rescued by small boats. The source of the story was something like "BuzzFeed." Hmmm...

What is wrong with this picture? If a serious bit of international news was reported, would "BuzzFeed" be the first to report it? Since the story was very fresh, I did some sleuthing and didn't find anything on CNN, NBCNews, or FoxNews. A quick check and I knew the post was a hoax. I was a healthy skeptic.

To help you be a healthy skeptic regarding things you read online, ask yourself the following questions from the Edutopia blog:

• Is this site relevant to my needs and purpose?
• What is the purpose of this site?
• Who created the information at this site, and what is this person's level of expertise?
• When was the information at this site updated?
• Where can I go to check the accuracy of this information?
• Why did this person or group put this information on the Internet?
• Does the website present only one side of the issue, or are multiple perspectives provided?
• How are information and/or images at this site shaped by the author's stance?
• Is there anyone who might be offended or hurt by the information at this site?
• How can I connect these ideas to my own questions and interpretations?

If you see something online, THINK before you believe and certainly before you hit the 'share' button!! Be a healthy skeptic!