#470: Home Is Where The Misinformation Is
Four articles on the power of the algorithm and its impacts on young people
Dear Loyal Readers,
We blame Big Tech, social media, and their algorithms for many of our society’s problems. Case in point (according to Jonathan Haidt): The reason our kids are messed up is because of their phones. There’s misinformation and the attention economy and Andrew Tate and misogyny on TikTok. All of this might be true. But why aren’t we (we meaning parents and educators) doing anything about it?
Have we given up? Or even worse, Are we part of the problem?
Today’s issue includes four articles that explore the common theme of misinformation and its effects on young people. On purpose, I’m being provocative, suggesting that this misinformation not only exists “out there” but also from within. Too often, our own lack of critical thinking — as well as our inability to talk deeply with our teenagers about their lives online — has meant relegating our young people to fend for themselves against a big, unadulterated, confusing, toxic cyberworld.
My hope is that you’ll read one or more of the following articles, then share your perspectives with our kind, thoughtful reading community. Here they are:
how many of us decry sleep training despite the scientific evidence
how the reason many kids have peanut allergies is that we listened to influencers
how we somehow believe the answer to our kids’ loneliness is an AI friend
Hope you appreciate this week’s articles. As always, if a piece resonates with you, let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, show your support by becoming a paid subscriber (like Hank!). I would be very grateful.
✚ You’re invited to join our discussion of “Athens, Revised” on December 1, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. Written by Erin Wood and published in The Sun, the article is equal parts devastating and uplifting. It’s raw and vulnerable. Throughout, it is brilliantly written. So far we have 10 people who have signed up, so there’s still room. You can find more info here and sign up here. Hope to see you there!
1️⃣ Is Sleep Training Harmful?
The answer is no. But that’s if you believe in scientific research. Many of us, though, base our parenting decisions on Instagram profiles, Reddit subreddits, articles we read online, and books with snazzy titles. In this outstanding multimedia presentation, Tom Vaillant explains with visualizations how misinformation spreads because we tend to believe what we already believe, consuming sources easily available to us. After all, it’s easier to follow an Instagram influencer who says that sleep training will kill your baby’s brain cells than it is to read the literature reviews and the clinical studies, nearly 100% of which conclude otherwise.
By Tom Vaillant • The Pudding • 10 min • Gift Link
2️⃣ Why Everyone Has Peanut Allergies
In 1999, 0.6 percent of American children had a peanut allergy. Their reactions were mostly mild. Then the numbers began to surge. Now the rate is almost 3 percent. And the effects are more often life threatening. What caused the rate and severity to shift?
The reason was an abundance of caution and a strongly worded recommendation by an authoritative organization published in a well-regarded medical journal. In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics told parents not to feed their children peanuts in any form until they turned 3. “Remember 1-2-3,” author Terry Murphy writes. “Age 1: start milk. Age 2: start eggs. Age 3: start peanuts.”
The problem was, there was no scientific basis for this guidance. For pediatricians (and therefore, parents) who followed the advice, it was better to be safe than sorry. After all, who wants to kill your kid just because peanut butter is delicious? Problem was, the recommendation created a vicious cycle. Ms. Murphy writes, “The more prevalent peanut allergies became, the more people avoided peanuts for young children. This, in turn, caused more peanut allergies. Tunnel-vision thinking had created a nightmare scenario for which the only possible solution seemed to be the total eradication of peanuts from the planet.”
By Terry Murphy • The Harvard Gazette • 10 min • Gift Link
3️⃣ Can AI Be Blamed For A Teen’s Suicide?
You may have heard about this sad, tragic story. In many ways, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III was a typical teenager. He liked Formula 1 racing and playing Fortnite with his friends. Like many young people, he did his best to navigate the challenges of growing up. But instead of opening up to his family, or building new friendships with his classmates, Sewell fell in love with a chatbot on the app Character.AI. Then one night, Sewell killed himself after his make-belief girlfriend told him to come home, “my sweet king.”
This article made me feel sick. First of all, I cannot imagine what Megan L. Garcia, Sewell’s mother, is going through. (She is suing the company.) In addition, I can’t stand that these apps are being marketed to teenagers as a solution to their loneliness. (Thirteen-year-olds can join.) One founder said, “It’s going to be super, super helpful to a lot of people who are lonely or depressed.” The other said that he founded the company for “fun.”
By Kevin Roose • The New York Times • 13 min • Gift Link
4️⃣ The New Wave of Right Wing Eco-Supremacists
I saved the best (and the most disturbing) article for last. Most of us think that climate change activism comes mostly from the progressive left, that conservatives have deemed the phenomenon a hoax fabricated by the government. No longer, argues Abrahm Lustgarten in this well-written, fascinating piece.
Over the past several years, there has been a trend among young men, radicalized to the far right by YouTube and social media, who believe in climate change acceleration and blame undocumented immigrants for its impact. The man who killed 23 people in El Paso in 2019 wrote, “If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.” The man who killed 10 people in Buffalo in 2022 did so in the pursuit of “green nationalism.” It’s a perverse but growing subset of the great replacement theory, once known only on 4chan’s message boards, but now amplified, largely unchecked, in mainstream media.
By Abrahm Lustgarten • ProPublica • 30 min • Gift Link
💬 Your Turn: What do you think?
➡️ Can parents and educators fight against the authority of the algorithm? If so, how?
Tip: Be sure to refer to at least one article in your response.
In typical Article Club fashon, be sure to be kind and thoughtful. The idea here is always empathy and understanding.
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Yes, people CAN fight against the power of the algorithm and its effects on young people (like those in the Pro Publica article)--AND that on adults (like those in the pieces from Pro Publica and The Pudding). IMO, the solution is in information (media) literacy education. This is the work of teacher-librarians (a credentialed position in which someone must have both teaching and librarian services credentials), whose training includes teaching learners how to access and evaluate information, and to recognize facts, opinions. triggers, and feelings (among other things). Note that this is not an extra course for students, but that teacher-librarians collaborate to plan and teach with content area teachers, so that the work is done in the context of learning the content standards and part of the work of learners every day. (This introduces another challenge, getting teachers to collaborate in these ways, but I'll leave that for another time!)
However, in CA, we have more than 10,000 students per teacher-librarian (the CA Model School Library Standards say that there should be 1 FT TL for every 750-800 students) and this ratio has been getting worse for the last few decades. In my local district, there are 4 TLs and 14,000 students. None of them is FT at any site; 3 cover 6 sites and one is the district library director. This decrease in TLs is ironic, because at the same time, we have increased the need for deeply critical thinking with the adoption of digital technologies that have "democratized journalism" and introduced more misinformation, disinformation, and outright mal-information into the public square.
I would say that the consequences of this lack of attention to information literacy have been very bad: a public that does not know how to evaluate information; a decline in student research skills; the rise of deliberate use of digital technology to manipulate far more citizens that ever before (Pro Publica article); and an increase in racist, misogynistic rhetoric in society (IMO).
What a perfect companion piece to this one! https://wellsourced.substack.com/p/teach-mis-and-dis-information-you . As a school librarian, I loved this round up - thank you!