Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Report: Digital Natives 'Easily Duped' by Information Online

Many students are having a hard time judging the credibility of online news, according to a new study from Stanford University. Researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Education assessed middle, high school and college students on the their civic online reasoning skills, or “the ability to judge the credibility of information that floods young people’s smartphones, tablets and computers.”

The Stanford History Education Group recently released a report that analyzes 7,804 responses collected from students across 12 states and varying economic lines, including well-resourced, under-resourced and inner-city schools. To test news literacy, the researchers administered 56 tasks that involved open web searches. They found that when it comes to evaluating information that flows on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, students “are easily duped” and have trouble discerning advertisements from news articles.

Native advertising, for example, “proved vexing for the majority of students,” according to the report. For one task, 203 middle school students were asked to evaluate the homepage of Slate magazine’s website. More than 80 percent of students believed that an advertisement with the words “sponsored content” was a news story. Several even responded that it was sponsored content, yet identified it as a credible news story.

Many people assume that today’s students – growing up as “digital natives” – are intuitively perceptive online. The Stanford researchers found the opposite to be true and urge teachers to create curricula focused on developing students’ civil reasoning skills. They plan to produce “a series of high-quality web videos to showcase the depth of the problem” that will “demonstrate the link between digital literacy and citizenship,” according to the report.

The report, “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning,” can be found here.

About the Author

Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Man offers stem word sign on virtual screen

    Immersive Workforce Development Initiative Connects Students with Real-World STEM Careers

    The Center of Science and Industry, a science museum and research center in Central Ohio, has launched The HIVE, a workforce development initiative designed to help students across the country explore real-world career pathways in aerospace, advanced manufacturing, engineering, and emerging technologies.

  • digital lock

    CoSN: Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Remain Top AI Concerns in Education

    A leading concern for education technology leaders across the United States is the potential for AI to enable new forms of cyber attacks, according to the latest State of Ed Tech report from CoSN.

  • broken digital lock and glowing chain

    Check Point Researchers: AI Has Crossed into the Live Attack Chain

    AI is moving beyond assisting cybercriminals and beginning to operate within live attacks, according to a recent report from Check Point Research. The technology is making sophisticated capabilities faster and more accessible while creating new security risks for businesses deploying their own AI systems.

  • circuit patterns

    Anthropic Intros Lower-Cost Claude Sonnet 5

    Anthropic has launched Claude Sonnet 5, positioning the model as its most autonomous mid-tier offering to date and a lower-cost alternative to its flagship Opus 4.8 system. The company said the model can plan multi-step tasks, operate tools such as browsers and terminals, and complete agentic work at a level that previously required larger and more expensive models.