Apr 7, 2020
Witness History: Deep into Social Media
We are witnessing history with the face of Coronavirus pandemic. People around the world are sharing their experience with Coronavirus, scientists are publishing their research and journalists reporting political aspects of the issue and so on. Due to social isolation, I found more time to spend on reading social media. I think my intuition, directs me to avoid social media when I have little time for myself, so I can save space for my job-this could be a mind inertia too.
I have been getting different questions-like mini quizzes-from my friends about the news on the social media. They want to learn how I think due to my profession. When I was answering those questions-trying to be scientific and down to the earth- I realized that I do not follow those “fake news” enough.
I started to look for a good question that will direct me in the right way: Do I have critical reading of social media? Then I came across with “News Literacy Project”. Here are couple of examples on web:
These websites help you to differentiate fake news, learn more deeply the policies of social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat- those policies able them to publish untrue, nonscientific stories. I solved one of the news literacy quiz. Ok I will share my score: I only got 2 questions (out of 10). Horrible.
Give a shot to yourself. How is your news literacy?
