Skip to main content

Study: 80 percent of students can’t differentiate between real and fake news

Fake news stories aren’t limited to elections, but it appears that most students don’t have the skills to detect fake stories. A Stanford University study found most students in junior high through college can’t tell the difference between fake news stories and the real thing, according to Fortune.

Stanford’s History Education Group tested for “civic online reasoning” — the ability to assess the credibility of information served up by smartphones, tablets, and computers. From January 2015 through June 2016 the group collected and studied responses from 7,804 students from 12 states. The schools ranged from “under-resourced” inner-city schools in Los Angeles to “well-resourced” suburban schools in Minneapolis. Testing in colleges ranged from large state universities with near-open enrollment, to Stanford University.

Recommended Videos

The results of the Stanford study showed that more than 80 percent of the tested students couldn’t tell the difference between real news articles and fake news. Articles published on social media were hard for students to judge and they often based their credibility assessments on irrelevant factors, such as larger images.

Middle school students didn’t get that articles written by company employees about their own industries might be biased.

Social media sites that spoofed official news sites were at times judged more credible than the real thing, even though the legitimate site had Facebook’s blue verification checkmark.

High school and college students alike were often swayed by high-quality design and graphics, and good writing, judging them credible regardless of the actual site content.

“Many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally perceptive about what they find there,” said Stanford’s professor Sam Wineburg, lead author of the study and the report. “Our work shows the opposite to be true.”

It’s not the case that everyone needs to study journalism or law, but the Stanford study shows clearly that while students may be facile with electronics, they need help learning how to evaluate the credibility of information.

Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown Contributing Editor   As a Contributing Editor to the Auto teams at Digital Trends and TheManual.com, Bruce…
How to deactivate your Instagram account (or delete it)
A person holding a phone with the Instagram app open on it.

Oh, social media. Sometimes it’s just too much, folks.

If you’re finding yourself in a position where shutting down your Instagram account for a period of time sounds good, the people at Meta have made it pretty simple to deactivate it. It’s also quite easy to completely delete your Instagram, although we wouldn’t recommend this latter option if you plan on returning to the platform at a later date.

Read more
Bluesky finally adds a feature many had been waiting for
A blue sky with clouds.

Bluesky has been making a lot of progress in recent months by simplifying the process to sign up while at the same time rolling out a steady stream of new features.

As part of those continuing efforts, the social media app has just announced that users can now send direct messages (DMs).

Read more
Reddit just achieved something for the first time in its 20-year history
The Reddit logo.

Reddit’s on a roll. The social media platform has just turned a profit for the first time in its 20-year history, and now boasts a record 97.2 million daily active users, marking a year-over-year increase of 47%. A few times during the quarter, the figure topped 100 million, which Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman said in a letter to shareholders had been a “long-standing milestone” for the site.

The company, which went public in March, announced the news in its third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday.

Read more