According to a study conducted by MIT scholars, false news spreads six times faster than real news on social media. In our digital age, we experience constant exposure to news and content—especially through social media and quick posts disguised as journalism. With most people mindlessly scrolling on their phones, it’s easy to see a “breaking news” headline, accept it as true, and move on with your day. With the rise of short-form videos, the rapid spread of misinformation has shaped how teenagers think and react. English and History courses do teach skills of critical thinking and analysis, but such classes are not enough. Media literacy occupies too small a role in our current academic landscape. Milton thus should require all students to take a digital literacy course.
Digital platforms, especially those centered around social media like TikTok and X, boost sensational or misleading posts because they generate engagement. These platforms’ very architecture is designed to prioritize user interaction—often through extreme or false claims— over factual accuracy. Headlines and short clips often appear without context, causing viewers to misinterpret news in incomplete or distorted ways. And it’s not only on video-circulatory social media platforms where this happens; misinformation also plagues text-based news sites. Fabricated sites designed to mimic legitimate outlets spread disinformation campaigns, partisan sources promote specific agendas at the expense of accuracy, and AI-generated content can rapidly produce convincing deepfakes and large volumes of synthetic text, making it harder for people to distinguish real from fake across all online sources.
This abundance of distorted media content affects people in many ways. False information can undermine public trust in essential institutions like the government or credible news organizations while also clouding judgment in areas like healthcare.
The real-world consequences of misinformation are not abstract. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a surge of misinformation misled citizens in serious public health topics, generating anti-vaccine and anti-mask sentiment. Another consequence of extreme views and false facts is political polarization. By reinforcing existing biases, misinformation contributes to the formation of echo chambers, where people are exposed only to information that confirms their worldview. English teacher David Nurenberg, who teaches Milton’s Journalism elective as well as advises The Measure, commented on the effects of echo chambers and online misinformation: “Too often, teens and adults alike…credulously believe information that fits their worldview without going through the effort of fact-checking it.” This habit deepens societal division, in which people only hear the news they want to hear, which is not always accurate.
However, schools should educate students to detect and combat misinformation. Because the cognitive development of adolescents is still in progress, they are more likely to be influenced by misleading content. Critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and metacognitive skills are still forming during these years, which can make it more difficult to distinguish credible information from manipulated content. This increased vulnerability makes structured media literacy education especially important during high school, when students are most exposed to digital information through phones and other devices.
Currently, Milton offers very few courses that specifically address media literacy. The English department’s Journalism elective is one such course, yet the course is not accessible to students of all grade levels. As a half-course, it also may not fit in many students’ schedules. Thus, Milton should make media literacy a mandatory course that all students need to take as a graduation requirement. Including media literacy in a standardized curriculum would ensure that every student learns how to navigate a world filled with misleading and manipulated information, giving students the tools to approach online information with confidence and to accurately distinguish real content from fake.
As endless social media content and news websites make accuracy harder to gauge, the ability to evaluate sources and recognize misinformation becomes an essential life skill. Without a required, structured instruction in media literacy for all students, we miss a critical learning opportunity at a formative age—one that helps teens develop balanced viewpoints and safely navigate the realities of misinformation in modern digital culture, while also preparing them to participate more thoughtfully in civic life. In a world shaped by algorithms, headlines, and viral content, media literacy is no longer optional—it’s foundational.