Position Paper #3 - Digital and Media Literacy

Media Literacy

Social media is a significant aspect of the lives of teenagers. After all, it has been reported that teens spend around 8 hours and 45 minutes on their phones daily. The internet is constantly spreading messages, news, advertisement, and entertainment. It can be challenging to analyze and sort through misinformation and facts. Because of this, learning critical thinking skills and applying those skills to our internet habits at a young age is beneficial. To do this, schools are teaching children through media literacy. Today, media literacy is taught to children as young as kindergarten.  

What is media literacy? Media literacy is the ability to: 

• Decode media messages (including the systems in which they exist)
• Assess the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and
• Create media thoughtfully and conscientiously.

Various tools are used to educate kids on media literacy, one example being video. For instance, Youtube channels such as CrashCourse and Ted-ed have many videos to aid teachers in lesson planning. The Media Literacy Clearing House has a page dedicated to videos titled "students should know." These videos include "How to Verify Images/Videos," "How to Recognize a Deep Fake," and "How to Recognize Fake News." 

Many people recognize Common Sense Media (CSM) as a tool for rating media and technology to determine their suitability for children. However, they also provide a vast amount of information regarding media literacy. Through the "News and Media Resource Center," teachers can obtain lessons, videos, and classroom activities. 

Artificial intelligence has created new challenges regarding digital and media literacy. There is concern that AI will increase misinformation in online spaces. For example, deep fakes are becoming a significant problem online. Not only will people believe videos that contain deep fakes, but they will also claim videos without them are fake. According to Education Week: 

"A [few] weeks ago there was a video that went viral of a drag show, and there were babies in the video. It was trying to stoke emotions, like, “Oh, that shouldn’t be allowed.” But what was interesting is that people’s response to it was immediately, “Oh, this is a deep fake.” Turns out, the video was real, it was just an example of the most common type of misinformation, which is real information taken out of context."

The question now is this, how do teachers help students use media literacy as a tool amidst artificial intelligence growing online? The rise of artificial intelligence online has also inspired schools to teach media literacy to help students think critically online. 

According to Digital Literacy Now, media literacy can aid in the conscious use of social media and "Digital Wellness." After all, social media users age 8 to 12 has increased in the last few years. It is no secret that social media can be dangerous for young kids and teenagers. Dangers such as child predators, sexual content, cyberbullying, misinformation, and identity theft will always be online. Predators target young social media users because they are impressionable. Some dangers will lead to depression or suicide in teens or kids. According to the CDC, suicide in teens increased by 30% between 2007 and 2015. Teaching kids to recognize harm online is a massive step toward preventing them.  

Despite new laws from government officials, kids should still know how to recognize risks. For example, Utah has passed two pieces of legislation to protect young social media users online. These laws include age verification and curfews for those under 18. In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders passed a bill stating that minors must obtain parental permission before creating a social media account. Laws like these will be spreading across America to protect the younger generation from the dangers found on the internet. However, kids and teens have consistently lied about their age to gain social media accounts. Facebook accounts for those under 13 violate the platform's terms, but it is easy to falsify your birthday. Regardless of laws and prevention, teens and kids will find a way online. 

Media literacy has been proven to be effective in helping aid students' mental health, according to Digital Literacy Now:

• Critical thinking around media use is an effective form of protection from the mindsets that lead to eating disorders, poor body image, low self-esteem, and depression. 
• To address harmful messages conveyed to increasingly young children by explicit sexual media and pornography, porn literacy is emerging as an effective intervention in disrupting abusive and misogynistic attitudes around gender and sex.
  
• Media literacy curriculum has been shown to change attitudes and decision-making about substance abuse.
• Media literacy education has been shown to change attitudes and behaviors around anger management and violence.

Teaching media literacy is beneficial not only to kids and teens but to adults as well. Adults can currently take media literacy classes online. Knowing how to analyze media and differentiate misinformation from facts is essential to students' online critical thinking, mental health, and safety. Also, as artificial intelligence grows, people must learn the repercussions AI can bring and the benefits. To combat misinformation, we must learn how to recognize it, and media literacy is the first step.