Digital Smarts - Kids and the News – Real and Fake

According to a new report released recently by Common Sense Media, about half of the almost 900 children surveyed (ages 10 to 18) said that following the news is important to them, and 70 percent said that consuming news makes them feel “smart and knowledgeable”. Social media and family members are among the top news sources used by young people. That all sounds good, but there is a hitch that should alarm parents: kids in the survey readily admitted that they are fooled by fake news. That makes them distrustful of the news media, which is the very thing that can teach them about their world. Less than half of the children interviewed (44 percent) said that they can discern fake news stories from real ones, and of the kids who shared a news story online in the past six months, 31 percent said they posted a story that turned out to be inaccurate or wrong.