Summary Of Article

Camile Domonoske, an NPR journalist, reviews a study conducted by Sam Wineburg, a professor from Stanford University, in this study it shows how a large majority of students in middle school, high school, and even college do not know how to properly determine if a story is fake or real. In this study 7,800 students were evaluated in 12 states. His most shocking discovery was that 80% of middle schoolers believed that sponsored content AKA an ad was real news even though before they read it they knew it was sponsored content. The study on highschoolers showed that 80% of them believed a fake news story when presented with a picture that looked like it fit the story but had no connection to it at all. In the study on college student they were presented with a fake site that was disguised as the real reputable site. 75% of the college students believed that the fake site was the real site and therefore took the story on the site as fact. This study shows how much of a danger fake news is and how uninformed students are. It also shows how bad students are at determining if a source is credible or not. In an interview from Wineburg he says "We cant really blame young people because we've never taught them to do otherwise". The article concludes by stating how important it is to teach young people to fact check everything and how to properly fact check.