Information Literacy In Real Life (IL IRL)

News Literacy

It happens to all of us: you are scrolling through social media and you suddenly see a post that makes you stop scrolling. The post might have a catchy headline, a statistic, or an image that gives you a strong reaction and you decide to share the post. 

However, so many social media posts can be misleading, taken out of context, or just inaccurate. How are you able to tell whether information in a social media post is accurate or not?

Some things you might want to consider when determining if a social media post is accurate:

• Who created the post? Can you figure out who the original creator was? What do you know about them?
• When was the post created? Is it a few years old or more recent? Sometimes posts from several years ago will circle around social media, highlighting outdated information.
• Are there any statistics or numbers included in the post? Does the post cite where they got their information from? Try looking up any statistics or facts in the post to see if they are accurate.
• Does the post contain an image? You can try and do a reverse image search to see where the image originally came from.
• Does the post have any kind of bias? Is it trying to get a reaction from a certain group of people?

Test your ability to tell the difference between misleading social media posts and accurate social media posts with the below quiz from the News Literacy Organization, sponsored by Scripps.

Quiz: Should You Share It?

For more information about evaluating information, check out SCC's Evaluating Sources Guide.