One major aspect of pondering (and going crazy over) the Facts of Life is thinking practically about how to convince people that it’s a good thing to be able to distinguish between facts as presented in news media, and fake news as presented by Russian trolls and other political liars.
If we can’t persuade adults to absorb facts and make decisions based on facts, then what do we do? Teach the kids. Start ’em out on the path to facts by schooling them early. Right?
Today I picked up this ultra disheartening information from FiveThirtyEight’s Significant Digits, which in turn got it from the WSJ:
82 percent
Percentage of middle school students who weren’t able to determine the difference between sponsored content and a real news article, according to a new Stanford University study. [The Wall Street Journal]