In these troubling times, understanding what information is reliable and which sources can be trusted may, tragically, be quite literally a matter of life and death for some people. Should we trust what our friends have forwarded to us, can we believe what we see in a picture on social media and is every source of information equal?
A survey published this week reports increased trust among adults in scientists and health experts, but also that 51% of adults have seen misinformation or fake news, echoing ongoing work by the media regulator Ofcom.
What sort of person spreads misinformation? BBC trending blog has an interesting characterisation of seven types of people, from jokers, scammers and politicians to conspiracy theorists and celebrities.
Being discerning in how we navigate through the daily waves of data and news without upsetting our mental and emotional equilibrium, or sticking our heads in the sand, leads to the notion of ‘information hygiene’. For parents it can make for tricky choices: how to talk with a child about the non-stop shocking and disturbing reports without scaring them or creating unnecessary anxiety. As the LSE’s Sonia Livingstone says, children are often aware of more than we might realise: