Stanford researchers assessed students from middle school to college and found they struggled to distinguish ads from articles, neutral sources from biased ones and fake accounts from real ones.
Most middle school students can’t tell native ads from articles.
Most high school students accept photographs as presented, without verifying them. … Many high school students couldn’t tell a real and fake news source apart on Facebook.
Most college students didn’t suspect potential bias in a tweet from an activist group. … Most Stanford students couldn’t identify the difference between a mainstream and fringe source.
The project began before the recent uproar over the prevalence of fake news online. But its relevance is immediately clear.