Welcome to Litsy!

It‘s scary how easy it is to manipulate a narrative to spread disinformation and even if it gets disproven it‘s harder to try and take back or change peoples minds with the true. I took an entire course on misinformation and ai and this is the type of knowledge that needs to be a mandatory class to take because this type of knowledge is desperately needed in this new age of social media and accelerating ai software.

I liked “The Ten Steps For Effective Disagreements.“ Especially step 4, which talks about using the principle of charity. This is a critical thinking idea that says you should assume the best possible interpretation of a person's argument. I like how this part of the chapter goes into detail about how the “looping technique“ (a repeating and editing technique for arguments) is a good way of practicing the principle of charity.

In chapter 5, “How to Debunk and Disagree,“ something I found to be really interesting was the idea of “cognitive immunity.“ Andy Norman thinks that we should think of the brain as having its own defense system, and he imagines an entire “mental immune system,“ that fights against false information that you want to keep out (“mind parasites“).

Something that caught my attention in this book was the chapter about social media and algorithms (“algorithmic bananas“). What really stuck out to me was when Dr. Yasmin said, “Social media algorithms can act like rabbit holes that lead you into a swamp of quicksand where misinformation is shoved at you... But that content, instead of getting buried, gets boosted and spotlighted by algorithms...“ (page 214)

I don't usually read nonfiction, but I found this book to be really interesting. I liked how it dealt with the subject of news and the way the media can twist it and mold it to specifically fit different purposes and agendas. I could really tell that Dr. Yasmin was trying to get to readers understand that there is way more to being media literate than knowing how the news is reported.

My overall impression of the book is that it is super applicable to a classroom environment and something that I will utilize in my future classrooms! I am not a nonfiction reader so this was definitely outside of my comfort zone. It helped open me up to reading more nonfiction books in the near future. P.S. I posted these least two posts last week but for some reason they never finished uploading? I think it was due to the spotty area I was in.

I found the “Ten Steps For Effective Disagreements” to be useful and something I want to utilize in m future classrooms. It does a really good job explaining how to open up the room to discussions of handling disagreements being had. This is not only applicable to classrooms but in daily life as well.

A critique that I do have is that this book is quite tedious. I think this could‘ve been shortened to an extent because I personally did not find it engaging enough for a young audience. It often felt repetitive almost? Overall though, it‘s a decent book that I think parts of it are really important for students to look into.

The most memorable chapter was the social media chapter and your brain. Learning about how your brains gets hits of dopamine through social media and how your brain becomes semi-dependent or fully addicted to it is scary, but really important for young minds to understand (and adults, of course). It‘s like a plague that has infected almost everyone, and this chapter lowkey made me want to delete my social media because of how addictive it is.

Finishing out my What the Fact? Posts because life happened for awhile… anyways:
I like how Yasmin lets the young audience know that we are all, as humans, innately biased. The anecdote she gives about the bike and cognitive bias is adequate for her audience, but I also feel like some parts of the book can go over a younger audience‘s head because of the density of information and definitions.

“A good place to start is by acknowledging that you, yes, you, are biased. Then, because implicit biases are hidden by definition, you can use an online test, such as Harvard University‘s Implicit Association Test, to figure out what you need to work on.“

I enjoyed the chapter titles, “HOW TO CONSUME NEWS LIKE & PRO: FACT-CHECK THE NEWS AND CREATE YOUR MEDIA DIET.“ I enjoyed this chapter because it proposed solutions to tackle the problem that is misinformation. The first paragraph of the chapter discusses how it can feel hopeless to navigate the current media landscape. I appreciate the acknowledgement that it can feel hopeless, and the suggestions on how to create a “media diet.“

I like how Dr.Yasmin used images, graphs, and other alternative kinds of media throughout the book. I think this adds a bit of intrigue to the text; it also reminds me of National Geographic books I would get from the scholastic book fair. The image above illustrates the sphere of consensus, controversy, and deviance. I like how the author used the image to explain how topics travel through the spheres. She uses the example of corporal punishment.

While this book was not my favorite that we have read so far (I really only like memoirs in the non-fiction genre), I think it is definitely a useful and interesting read. Younger readers who are trying to navigate the internet could 100% benefit from this book. I have been working with rising 9th graders this summer and the way that they interact with social media is wild. This book could be paired super well with specific discussions of posts.

I agree that often people don‘t engage with the news to learn about current events but rather to confirm their biases. Much news is catered to people‘s values. Often journalists target the values of their audience in order to stir them up for or against something. This allows the journalist (especially those with soc media platforms) to gather a larger audience. It‘s easy to gather an audience that way, as the viewers receive a confirmation bias.

In the beginning of the book, I like how Yasmin emphasizes the importance of understanding that the point of the book is to not change minds or opinions, but to only strengthen their research and own understandings. A lot of times, I think people (especially parents) get worried about their kids reading books like this because they‘re afraid it is “indoctrinating” but it‘s pretty clear that she is only trying to educate a new generation.

The Framing of Operation Iraq was extremely interesting. I was aware that propaganda was extremely popular in most of the wars that have occurred. When I think of this propaganda, I think of the posters that were in newspapers and people like Rosie the Riveter. However, I never considered how videos could be altered/ staged in order to gain support for a war and to spread false information.

I loved learning about the history of the United States Postal Service. It's crazy to think about how not too long ago people were relying on the mail service to receive information about political figures, such as the president. However, in today's day in age, we have that information instantaneously. We have much more access to these individuals, and I wonder if this information affects how these people are viewed in history.

I really liked learning about the Dunning-Kruger effect. I feel like it's connected to every conversation we had in methods class about the importance of background information. This concept would be extremely helpful to bring into my classroom prior to having any type of debate. I would use this cognitive bias to encourage students to do research prior to entering into any type of discussion.

I found the analogy of the false information being like the Corona Virus to be extremely informative and helpful. I never considered how false information originates with one person and spreads to everyone else. In today's society, I feel like false information is extremely common, yet many people blindly accept information as facts.

I think there were a lot of good lessons to learn from this book. The above paragraph stood out to me a lot because social media isn't going away anytime soon, but there are ways to control and regulate how we use it. It's up to each individual user to decide what their media consumption will look like, and this approach outlined by Yasmin seems like a good starting place for anyone looking to change their habits.

I WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS ADVICE WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL! I was a very opinionated high schooler, and, while I didn't actively try to pick fights, I was, by no means, adverse to them. I really would've appreciated someone telling me that I would really have to pick and choose whether or not certain relationships were worth my energy and time, and it would have helped me quite a lot.

On the other hand, as opposed to my earlier post, this section, I thought, explained a complex topic really well for a younger audience. I believe the key difference, for me, is in the tone; the section before felt vaguely condescending, and judgemental of the search (or interest!) in knowledge. On the flip, this section is particularly welcoming of the quest for new knowledge that young readers are on.

Okay, despite being a hater at my core, very rarely do I rag on specific parts of books. However, the tone in this particular section really just... made me kind of hate the book to be honest. I think back to the version of myself that I was when I was in high school (and was the target age for this book), and I just know that I would have hated being talked down to.

I particularly loved this metaphor within What the Fact--there is something especially interesting in the way in which we talk about virality and the way people are interconnected both online and offline; I think the decision to compare the COVID-19 pandemic is both topical, and a great way to introduce the concept to readers, no matter their age.

Overall I enjoyed reading this book, but I do feel like the author got a little bit repetitive at times. There were some examples and chapters that just felt really long for no reason, but otherwise, I think this book is a great read for middle and high school age students! The author is really passionate about what she writes and that is evident throughout the entire book!

Another thing I enjoyed about this book was the easily digestible writing style. The author didn‘t waste time with fancy words or complicated metaphors; she just wrote. I think this would be an easy text to adapt or use within the classroom just because the writing style would reach even the students that don‘t like reading!

I really liked the psychological aspects of media literacy that were explained in this book, specifically when it came to the social media chapter. The way Yasmin explains concepts makes it easy to digest and understand, and I can definitely see how this book could fit in a classroom setting.

Yasmin's discussion of objectivity and neutrality was very well done, in my opinion. Being completely impartial regarding topics such as politics, climate change, gender issues, etc. is pretty much impossible, no matter how hard someone might try to stay open-minded to all sides of an issue. Personal biases prevent true neutrality from becoming tangible, especially in the realm of journalism.

Just finished Chapter 3! I was pleasantly surprised by the timeline of American journalism; truthfully, I had no clue it dated back to BCE. I also really enjoyed how Yasmin discussed the issue of narrative framing and how framing can affect the exposure that an issue receives. Who tells a story is so important; an author's credibility and the way they frame a story can completely change how we perceive an issue, and I think that's very powerful.

I used to be a Journalism major before I switched to English Ed, and I took a few classes that discussed a lot of the topics in this book. It's interesting to get a lot more context and learn more than I was able to before I switched my major. I think things like news/media literacy are important to understand, especially when it comes to recognizing things like dis/misinformation in the content we consume every day.

I really like the author's use of sidebars to present rhetorical questions and additional information. If I were to use excerpts from this book in the classroom, I think a lot of these questions would create great discussions as a class. Even outside of the classroom, it was interesting to think about these questions by myself and consider the information being presented.

I personally loved the portion about social media in this book! I feel like the power of social media is so heavy on the shoulders of the students we‘ll be teaching and how it impacts their lives. Additionally, it‘s so interesting to learn about how it affects their brains (and ours as well)! I‘d always thought about how social media and literature intersect, and this book offers powerful insight!

One thing I really like about this book is its ability to really break down the many confusing components of misinformation and how easily it can spread. The real world examples and connections to mathematical models really helped bring this issue to an understandable level. I especially loved how they fooled us all with the apple seed/arsenic fact, it really put how misinformation spreads into perspective !

This is not typically I book I would read, but I found myself enjoying it! It was very informative and found it to be very relevant to today‘s issues. I think lots of high schoolers would enjoy this book due to it focuses on topics like social media.

I really enjoyed this book as such an informative and entertaining resource for audiences to tap into to see the full depth of what it‘s like navigating media, news, and conversations in all sorts of forms. I think I will definitely revisit this multiple times in my teaching both to refresh on it myself and introduce for lessons and reading. Overall, I loved it!

I loved this part of the book as it serves as such a great tool for opening discussions and especially handling disagreements in classrooms. I feel like a big portion of English classrooms is knowing how to engage in difficult conversations and these steps help lay it out for younger students. For myself, I also appreciated the steps to improve my own handling of disagreements and difficult conversations.

To build on my last post, I do think that some responsibility needs to be assumed for making newcomers to social media aware of this information. I would love to do a unit one day on some of the things she touched on in this book. She made me very aware of the power that social media (and the internet in general) holds over us, and I think that there is a lot of value in the idea that we do have the ability to at least educate ourselves on it.

I really enjoyed reading chapter four of this book, which was all about social media. Not only did I learn a lot of things I did not know about brain chemistry, algorithms, etc. but it also prompted me to think about how social media outlets have become and extremely controlling presence in the last several years. I think this chapter alone would be a great addition to any middle/ high school classroom. This information is extremely relevant.

I am learning so much from this book already! I thought I knew a lot about misinformation and “fake news“ before reading this, but this book is proving that there is so much more to the issue of false information than meets the eye. I'm almost overwhelmed by how much I've learned from the first chapter alone, but Yasmin has done a good job of dissecting certain topics in a way that is approachable and easy to read, especially for younger readers.

Yasmin‘s comments on the importance of local news interested me. Generally national and global news has become the focus of our attention. However, we have much more access to making changes on a local level than a national or global one. With a loss of informative local news, citizens are less aware of how local government is spending money, controversies within the community, the state of the education system, etc.

I found myself learning a lot throughout this book! For instance, I had no idea what a troll army was until I read this. I think the author does a great job introducing new concepts in a digestible way. I think this kind of book is a great read for people who are starting to get into nonfiction due to its simplistic writing style.

I am very fond of the idea of using this book as a part of a larger research unit/ project. Obviously the general idea of the entire book is very valuable to impressionable young people, but I also think that implementing some of the ideas in this book on the heels of reading it would be a great way to reinforce the risk of misinformation and disinformation. I wish I had been introduced to something like this in middle/ early high school.

So far I am really liking this book. I have seen several people mention this already, but I think it could be a good introduction to non-fiction writing for a student who has not previously enjoyed non-fiction. The writing is very compelling, and the anecdotal elements provide a good break from the informational aspect of the book. This is somewhat how I got into non-fiction with a similar book and it really opened my eyes to how enjoyable it is.

I absolutely loved the way that chapter 2 was introduced in the book with the story of Sara and Mimi in order to then use it to talk about the chapter‘s focus of biases. It gives a great example of our own biases that may come from the simplest of stories and what that informs us of. This book is definitely going in my classroom and I‘d love to use it as a resource in class!

On first impression with this book, I really like how the author/publisher included different compositional modes throughout the book. Everything from the pictures, graphics, bolding specific words, and sidebars made it for a really dynamic read that didn‘t get too tiring to look at. I think for the seriousness of the message that Yasmin is sending, it does a good job of making it easier to grasp!

Yasmin consistently reflects on what she previously wrote and continues to summarize. It feels as if she is constantly saying, “Because this… then what about this?” in an if-then pattern. She has an increasing depth of exploration on this topic, which has increased my curiosity as well.