I Lectured My Mom About Social Media

I have never thought that there would come a point in my life where I have to lecture my mom about something. I grew up with her lecturing me about everything I needed to know about life. She’s a college professor too, so you can imagine how those “lectures” went. Last night, I reached that point. I had to lecture my mom. What is it about? Well, it’s about COVID-19 and how she needs to responsibly process all the information she comes across on social media.

It is not a secret that our parents and elders are really not that adept in filtering information they read from Facebook (I assume that is the only social media platform they generally are on). Our generation can even get fooled by clickbaits and fake news, so it’s not really surprising how they could fall victim to worse. It all started when she read to me a long, albeit ridiculous, Facebook post about “how to avoid COVID-19 according to a prominent physician.” The article was full of medical jargon but lacks basic substance. It’s one of those that talk about how the virus spreads only when you inhale the air an infected person exhales. That is totally not true; but that’s beside the point.

Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate her effort in letting me know what to do to prevent being infected, but I felt like I had to call out her attention and teach her how to fact check and process the information she consumes – especially if it’s from Facebook.

I started my lesson by explaining to her why it is important that she fact checks the posts she reads on Facebook. I explained to her that proliferating unverified information about the outbreak and saturating social media with unofficial data about the virus would make it hard for the authorities to spread the right information to the public. Social media becomes so noisy that people will not be able to easily hear when authorities talk.

Now, I told her that there are different ways to fact-check the information she reads from Facebook. Here’s a summary of what I shared to her:

Judge your friends. I know that judgment is not really the right word for it but I believe phrasing it that drives the point across better. Check who shared the information. Is the person a doctor? Is the person from the academe? Is the person, based on your own judgment, a reliable source of information. If so, then chances are the information they posted is more likely to be accurate. But don’t stop there. The next step is to validate.

Validate the source of the information. So now you have determined that the person who shared an article (or a post) is a trustworthy individual who will not intentionally share fake news. You then have to be diligent in fact checking their sources. Is the article they posted published by the World Health Organization? Is it published by the CDC or other international health agency? Is it published by the Department of Health? Is it written by a renowned expert? Is it an article from a reputable news agency? If not, do not take the information as a fact. Even if they sound true, it is safer to filter them out.

Cross Reference. If you’re still unsure whether the information is accurate or not, try checking other reputable news agencies if they have reported similar stories. If they did, then read that story and counter check.

Report. If in case you have determined that the information your “friend” shared on their timeline to be fake, unverifiable, and misleading, report it. Or better yet, call your friend out. Let them know (in the most polite and respectful way possible) that the post they shared is unverified, or worse, fake. Even if they don’t take down the post and someone sees your comment, at least they would be warned that what they are consuming is misinformed.

In times of crisis, the efficient circulation of accurate information is necessary to combat the impacts of pandemics like COVID-19. It is our responsibility as a community to make sure that we eliminate noise as much as possible so that authorities can reach out to everyone in a timely manner. In the end, I think after our conversation, my mom understood what I said and hopefully apply everything from now on!

 

P.S. WASH YOUR HANDS PLS!!