Students say misinformation abounds online. Experts say critical thinking helps them navigate it

Whether it's young kids watching YouTube videos, older ones logging on for games or teens scrolling TikTok, students today encounter all manner of content online and often simply accept it as truth, according to 13-year-old Ainara Alleyne.

"I don't think [younger kids] really know the difference between misinformation, disinformation and true news ... These are just things that people are saying. You don't really know that people can have hidden agendas or misinterpret different things," noted the Hamilton-based Grade 8 student. 

It's part of why the teen has joined one of a growing wave of initiatives hoping to boost students' digital literacy and critical thinking skills, so they can better distinguish what's what amid the storm of facts and misinformation flying around the chaotic online spaces they're navigating. 

"As younger people we're so used to using social media, things like Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok, and it's so easy to spread misinformation on those apps — and even disinformation, where someone purposefully wants to spread information that's wrong," said 17-year-old high school senior Arjun Ram. 

"It's super important that kids today understand and can decipher what's real and what's not."

Alleyne and Ram are part of Reporting 101: Misinformation, a new CBC Kids News initiative designed to teach students in Grade 4 through 8 about separating fact from fiction, via the ultra-popular, blocky, 3D-gaming world of Minecraft.  Launched this past week, the new world taps players as budding journalists investigating a story tip: summer vacation has been cancelled. Players must find and speak with different sources, verify gathered information, determine the truth and write an article from their research. 

"This game will help kids understand that you should care and that it's important to track down where your information stems from, and it's important to decipher whether that's true or not," Ram said.

Embedding this kind of learning inside a space where young people love spending time is an approach that gets a thumbs up from Kara Brisson-Boivin, director of research at MediaSmarts, a Canadian non-profit organization focused on digital and media literacy.

"It's building in those educational moments and opportunities within their game play," she said from Windsor, Ont. 

"They're going to embrace those educational opportunities all the more, because it's already within the spaces and the online activities that they're engaged in."

WATCH | Tips on navigating online spaces amid misinformation:

For more than 20 years, MediaSmarts has been running a comprehensive research study into young Canadians' attitudes and behaviours on digital technology and the internet. One recent report specifically explored older teen and young adult perceptions and concerns about misinformation and disinformation in online platforms and communities. 

Though respondents reported enjoying the interactive vibe and immersive feeling of their favourite spaces, they also revealed how often they've come across misinformation and disinformation. They're aware of how this kind of content connects with online hate — misogyny, racism, homophobia and more, Brisson-Boivin noted — and young people want to see more transparency, effort and action from decision-makers to combat it, within the platform itself.

"Young people want to be in this space. They like the vibe. They don't want to have to completely leave it," she explained, noting the challenge of pausing or withdrawing to fact-check information in another space or external source.