Episode Details

Every major technological paradigm shift has broken society before it fixed it. The printing press, radio, television. Each one reshaped how we communicate and what we believe. Now the internet, social media, and AI are repeating the pattern at unprecedented speed. Joel Breakstone, co-founder and executive director of the Digital Inquiry Group, has spent over a decade studying how people evaluate online information, and what he's found is alarming: students, academics, and everyday adults are failing at even the most basic tasks of digital discernment. But his research also reveals a path forward, built on the surprisingly simple strategies of professional fact checkers.

Episode Highlights: 

[00:01:55] Was the internet a huge mistake? 
[00:08:30] From Stanford History Education Group to the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum 
[00:12:35] Fact checkers vs. PhDs vs. Stanford freshmen: who evaluates sources best? 
[00:15:20] Lateral reading: the counterintuitive skill that changes everything 
[00:26:20] The collapse of institutional trust and rise of influencer trust 
[00:31:05] AI as both threat and tool for digital literacy

Notable Quotes: 

Joel Breakstone [00:11:25]: "The myth of the digital native is very much a myth. Young people, like the rest of us, need help making sense of the unbelievably crowded and confusing landscape that we encounter when we go online." 

Joel Breakstone [00:27:30]: "It can become really easy to just throw your hands up in the air and say, 'Nothing's real. I don't know what to trust.' And that is a really dangerous place for us to end up because it plays into the hands of authoritarians."

Resources & Links:

• Digital Inquiry Group — https://www.inquirygroup.org/
• Civic Online Reasoning (COR) Curriculum — https://cor.inquirygroup.org/
• Verified by Mike Caulfield & Sam Wineburg — https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo207015182.html

Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday.

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