We Need to Teach Kids How to Be Skeptical of the Internet

The internet is a beautiful escape, the world's most wide-reaching communication device, the biggest business ever conceived, and a leveler of who has the tools to create art. But it’s also a perfectly-honed propaganda machine that bounces back our biases so often it’s become a hazard to the future. According to a year-long study from Stanford researchers, the inability of young students to tell “fake news” from real news is alternately “dismaying,” “bleak,” and a “threat to democracy.” If the children are the future, the future looks bleak. What age should educators—both at home and school—offer lessons on how to use the internet? As soon as humanly possible.