How to encourage kids to think critically about YouTube
July 4, 2018 2:45 PM   Subscribe

I'm a volunteer counselor at a summer camp with a strong emphasis on critical thinking and scientific inquiry, and I'm hoping to put on an hour-long program helping kids (ages 8-17) learn how to discern fact from fiction on YouTube specifically, and the internet in general. I'm concerned about radicalization via the "Up Next" suggestions, and I'd like to do whatever I can to head off that sort of misinformation.

My goal is to give the kids some tools to return home with to critically evaluate what they watch and are recommended on YouTube. I think I will begin by spending 15 minutes talking about logical fallacies, how to identify them, and how to counter them. I would then like to move into an interactive activity to practice these ideas and skills. Some ideas I've had:

- bring some aluminum foil so they can make their own tin-foil hats, and talk about why the tin-foil hat idea exists.
- split the kids up into several groups to perhaps invent their own little conspiracy theory and present it to the other groups for analysis.
- have the kids describe something they saw on the internet that they weren't sure of its veracity and discuss it as a group.

The principles of the camp strongly encourage camper-led discussion as opposed to straight-up lectures from the counselors. The kids will generally already pretty well-versed in science, critical thinking, and skepticism but I don't want to assume much knowledge or discernment.

I'd love to hear thoughts and ideas from people who have taught their kids or students these things, and what was effective and compelling. I'd also be interested in hearing ideas for age-appropriate "fake conspiracy theories" that the kids could present to the group. There will probably be other activities at camp that encourage general critical thinking, so I'd like to keep this fairly focused on conspiracy theories and YouTube. Thank you!
posted by tybstar to Education (6 answers total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: What tools will you be using to teach? Will you have a computer with internet?

There is a lot out there on this- you might want to look at the work that school librarians do in this field. One of the search terms you will want to use is "digital media literacy" or "media literacy". Here are some links:

Teaching Tolerance's Digital Literacy Webpage

ISTE's site

Common Sense Media Page

Most of these links have lessons you can build on that put students in charge of the work.
posted by momochan at 3:17 PM on July 4, 2018 [3 favorites]


Snopes.com might be a resource that you can direct them to, as they fact check some of the stories that are floating around at any given time (you may also be able to garner some ideas for conspiracy theories from here).

This camp sounds great, thank you for the work that you're doing with youth!
posted by DTMFA at 4:00 PM on July 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


You can illustrate the echo chamber effect if they have smart phones - get them to all Google the same search term and compare results to see how they differ.
Teaching logical fallacies is fun - I try and use actual speeches from politicians (important to show left AND right.) You could also offer a prize for anyone who can bring you examples (naming the fallacy) and run it for the duration of the camp. I did this for years with my classes - a bar of chocolate for any political speech with a fallacy correctly identified. I never had to pay out until Trump & Brexit, whereupon I paid out twice in two weeks.
posted by Heloise9 at 11:05 PM on July 4, 2018


Best answer: Some miscellany:

I think a basic but important rule of thumb is that you need to be extra suspicious about any source explicitly telling you that "everyone else" has been lying to you all this time, since that's the classic conspiracy (and cult!) ego-stroking that invites the viewer/reader to think of themselves as special and, now, especially in the know.

Which isn't to say that such a claim can't possibly be true! But it merits extra, extra caution.

Separately, it's worth being extra suspicious (but not quite as much so) of anyone trying to sell you anything. Are they letting you in on tidbits of surprising knowledge while just happening to be selling an e-book or premium video series with the full story? Is the webpage they link to full of repeated and repeatedly intensifying "buy now" or "subscribe to our newsletter here" buttons? If they're telling you a food you've been eating all your life will kill you, are they also selling pills or a whole diet system?

(Maybe for kids stuff, more important than keeping an eye out for sales-pitches is keeping an eye out for sponsored opinions.)
posted by nobody at 9:46 AM on July 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


My 10-year-old son was somewhat obsessed (and utterly convinced by) that Russian YouTuber's "Homunculus" videos from a couple years ago. I found more than a few sites doing a pretty good scientific debunking of what was going on there (I don't have the links handy - but I think it's Google-able).

I always thought that would be a good case study for kids in that age bracket - it's compelling and kind of gross, so yay!
posted by pantarei70 at 2:58 PM on July 5, 2018


It seems like many of the ideas are developmentally above what the 8-12 year olds are capable of doing. I teach high school, but I’ve also taught middle school so I have experience with most of that age bracket. I also have a nine year old stepdaughter.

All but the tinfoil hat part is probably above the level of anyone under 12. We don’t even introduce rhetoric or logical fallacies until 11th grade.

However, determining whether something is fact or opinion would be good. There are also some great “Is this real?” sites like Mike the Headless Chicken, Velcro Trees, etc. that let kids evaluate websites to see if they are credible.

I do something called Google Search Challenge where kids have five minutes to research a dubious claim (humans swallow 500 spiders in their lifetime, or 30k people voted for Harambe in the last election) and find sources both for and against. That leads to great discussion and inevitably, to snopes.

I also like to talk about plagiarism and YouTube. Remix culture makes it really challenging to draw lines sometimes, and it leads to great conversations about how the video description is used.

Maybe also check out Crash Course Media Literacy.
posted by guster4lovers at 9:03 PM on July 8, 2018


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