From entering high school to graduating college, it’s one of the most important times in your life. Everyone goes through it, but only the people who have lived through it can give the best advice. That’s where I come in, a 20-year-old college student who’s been through high school and living the college experience to give you all the tips for survival. 

Let’s start with the basics: Don’t believe anything on social media. Even if it has 3,000 retweets, it doesn’t mean it is real. Check your sources if an online magazine says that the world ran out of cheese. Check another source to see if they have an article covering the world no longer having cheese as well. Now that we established the basics, here is your guide to understand and avoid misinformation. 

A Stanford University study found that 82% of middle school students struggled to distinguish between advertisements and news articles and identifying where the information came from. Therefore, be careful with statistics in headlines, on social media posts, and in advertisements. You need to read the entire infographic and paragraph to get the full understanding of the statistic. Oftentimes, statistics signify only a portion of something specific and need to be read in full detail, not taken at face value.  

Don’t just read headlines. Take this from someone who is studying journalism – headlines are meant to grab the reader’s attention. If the title didn’t grab your attention, no one would pay attention to the news. Headlines in news articles only sometimes give away the full story, but most of the time, to get the full picture and really understand a topic, you must read the entire article for crucial information that wouldn’t fit into the headline. When it comes to breaking news, the headline is often the only thing to read, so it’s the only time when the headline is all you need. 

California has passed a law to help school-aged children understand media literacy. This is a crucial step in getting people to understand what is fake news and what is real: education. In journalism, they often teach “be skeptical not cynical,” and this should apply to everyone looking for information online. Social media is a wonderful tool to spread information quickly, but everyone must be careful about taking anything in social media as a die-hard fact. If you are not 100% sure about a fact or image you are sharing on social media, don’t post it because you are adding to the field of misinformation. Understanding how to avoid misinformation is essential to know the truth, and to be educated correctly about how to read the media is a practice I urge everyone to pick up. In the end, knowing what is the truth and what is not comes down to checking multiple sources to confirm the information. 

Of course, I’m still going through the whole college situation and you should always listen to your parents’ advice first, but I hope this helps. And don’t forget that you have so much to offer the world! Have some advice or want advice on a specific topic? Email [email protected] with your inquiries.