Mind vs internet

Remember when the Internet was going to educate us and elevate our overall intelligence as a species? (aww the '90s were so sweet and naïve, weren’t they? ;) )
All that good stuff may happen, but at present, digital fake news is deceiving countless minds.

We are floundering in the fake news era.
This is a deep, dark ocean, and too many of us don’t know
how to swim.

Billions of websites have been weaponized with content designed to attack our cognitive vulnerabilities.
Every day, YouTube videos pump nonsense into the minds of millions. Billions of emails fly around the world delivering irresistible links to madness...... O.o

All of this is possible because most people have not bothered to learn

the basics of human thought—biases, short cuts, and perception errors—that lead us to so easily believe nonsense and lies.

• Be skeptical of everything. Never accept any claim, story, or news article as 100 percent true. Leave the door slightly ajar for intellectual escape.

Take the stance of a good scientist and remember that all knowledge is provisional.

Be humble—you don’t know everything about everything

• Consider the source.

While we cannot trust any source completely and without reservation, the reputation of a source is a key

When many people land on a webpage, however, they begin reading the content. Even if they are thoughtful enough to be concerned with errors, bias, and dishonesty, they make the key mistake of assuming that any problems present will become apparent while reading. This is not necessarily so.

Question IT

Who is behind this website?
Who wrote the material?
Who is paying the bills here?
What is their track record, and do they have any obvious agendas or biases? Who took this photo and wrote the caption under it?

Specifically related to this, I have observed people conduct Internet searches when trying to find an answer or research a topic, and it is shocking how few check the source before plunging into the information.
This is a critical error that leads people off course.

• Google is not a god.

I know, Google is great. How did we ever live without it?
But it’s still just a search engine. It feeds you results based on the query and perhaps your online identity as determined by the algorithms working behind your back.

Google is not your personal librarian!!!!!

• Where is everybody else?

If no one else is reporting a particular story, ask yourself why. !???

• Understand the difference between opinion and news.

Many people don’t recognize the fundamental difference between opinion or commentary and news. Straight news is about the hard facts of an event and may include direct quotes