A study from Columbia University concluded that most Americans can discern between fake and real news. Researchers claim that exposure to high-quality news sources is the key indicator; they suggest that the solution to misinformation lies in improving media literacy. A straightforward solution to a complex social issue, wouldn’t you say?
However, another group of researchers affiliated with NYU and Stanford recently concluded that when people use online resources to evaluate misinformation, they end up getting further entrenched. Yes, that’s right: similar to quicksand, the more some people try to escape misinformation, the deeper they sink.
Reconciling these contradictory findings requires a mental contortion worthy of a pretzel: If you don’t have access to quality news, you’ll fall prey to misinformation; but if you have to seek out quality news, you’ll end up falling for bad news anyway.
If none of this concerns you, take a look at the calendar. We’re in the midst of the 2024 Olympics of Misinformation, also known as the U.S. presidential election season. This means that if you intend to engage in a political conversation with a friend, relative, neighbor, or coworker in the coming weeks, you’re highly likely to encounter at least one person with a distorted view of reality. One person, one vote.
Luckily, I am (as of this writing) the nation’s foremost expert in misinformation capture theory—and I have some suggestions.
OK, I made that last part up. There’s no such thing as misinformation capture, and I’m not a social science researcher. However, I am a novelist, and that means I’m adept at crafting stories that others want to believe. And I think about misinformation pretty much all the time.
Yet even I’m exhausted by the amount of analysis required to uncover the truth when reading some headlines. I know politicians lie or obfuscate and always have, but it feels worse, lately. I am (like most Americans) fairly certain I can identify a lie when I see it. But when it comes to misinformation, there’s only one thing we can know for sure: that nothing’s certain. Even—and especially—our own certainty.
A recent think piece in the New York Times surmised that the Blair Witch Project was the first film to popularize “found footage” horror—a dubious turning point in what we expect from the pop culture we consume. Of course, one scary movie alone can’t change how society works. But it can signify a shift. Skip ahead a few news cycles, and people now basically expect online misinformation to run rampant—and trust in media during the off-season is at an all-time low. Trust in governments or religious institutions are at an all-time low. Social media platforms have made us fickle with approval and disapproval.
As a culture, we have largely abandoned the gatekeeper model in media, music, and mass communications, and we have embraced the idea that individuals can be their own best decision-makers. At the heart of this decision is the well-intentioned but problematic American ideal that anyone can do anything in America. That anyone can shake up politics for the better. That anyone who can speak fluently is qualified to debate public health mandates. And it’s partly true—we all have ideas, we’re all capable of great possibilities. There’s just one problem: not all my ideas are equal to your ideas on every topic. We all have blind spots—. How can you know if you don’t know what you think you know when what you know is all you know?
Look, I don’t have a foolproof method for freeing misinformation captives. But I do believe the best way to spot misinformation is to be a better reader. A better listener. A more careful thinker. And the only way to do that is with practice. We all need to think, consider, and evaluate a story while we’re hearing it for the first time. This isn’t an easy cognitive task. But it’s doable. It doesn’t even have to be work. To coin a phrase—sometimes, thinking is fun.
When my kids were in elementary school, I walked them to school daily, and because the route was long for their little legs, sometimes I’d distract them with riddles. Usually, the riddle was a story with a mystery at the center: , , . They loved to suss out the truth by asking questions, guessing at possible causes. I knew a riddle was a good one when I heard them tell it to someone else, later—often with the details slightly garbled, the logic faintly askew. They loved the feeling of unlocking the truth.
As they’ve gotten older, they have begun to navigate to school and through life on their own, and these riddle-solving, truth-finding skills only get more useful. In the online world as much as the real one. I can’t tell them who to trust in every situation. I can’t go with them everywhere anymore. I don’t even know who they’re with all the time. I have to trust that as parents my wife and I have given them the tools to make good decisions, and as such now we just have to step back and watch—and try to relax.
Listening closely to other people’s stories; trusting that you yourself possess only a limited understanding of events; watching and waiting and thinking about how something you believe could be wrong—these are the tools of a novelist and a parent equally. They’re also great ways to avoid the trap of misinformation.
Understanding each other better is the foundation of a civil society. Civil society! Is that still a thing? It’s not something I hear people talk about much anymore. Certainly it’s not the modus operandi of the online world. Maybe it never existed, except in the dreams of writers and artists.
For my part I like to think the rumors are true: we are capable of a better world. All we have to do is tell the story enough times, double check all the facts, rehearse all the lines till every detail is right, and we can make it real.
