How to keep your children from ‘fake news’

Our children live in the age of information, constantly in front of a screen whether it be a television, an iPad or the latest phone device. A life without the Internet, is no life at all when it comes to the younger generations. The Internet is one of the primary ways in which we communicate, more exasperated in the life of millennials.

Social media is often the source of news, where they find out about events, whether they be real or not. This leads us to ‘fake news’ which is a type of ‘yellow journalism,’ designed to create myths that are sensationalised by wide spread social media with the use of eye-catching headlines.

To keep our children from believing in these false news, we need to teach them how to distinguish what is real versus fake. There are several ways our children can learn to distinguish real news:

Who is the publisher?

When it comes to education, websites that finish with a.edu or .org are credible, or teach your children about the major newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and so forth so they know credible news sites.

Grammar

With fake news there tends to be poor punctuation, poor grammar, and a poor quality of images on offer.

Advertisements

Look at the type of ads and who the target market is. With a high volume of ads on display, this means the site is usually after income, especially when the ads display adult content.

It is highly important for children to be able to identify when news is 'fake', whether it is an exaggerated version of the story or completely false. It will allow them to stay informed and to shape their perceptions on the truth rather than the false accounts that some websites are trying to feed them for publicity.