#social media literacy

[it-ket]

Is being social media literate actually helpful in achieving quality education?

Social media has been used since a long time ago. While it was initially simpler and more narrow in scope, it has slowly evolved over time. Many users engage with it every day, sharing various pieces of information, both factual and vague. With this recurring event, it can be concluded that having social media literacy can contribute to achieving quality education.

Firstly, what does being social media literate mean? It is the ability to critically, effectively, and responsibly access, use, understand, and engage with media of all kinds. Possessing this skill is not only important for adults but also for children to help them understand and avoid the possible harm social media can bring, especially nowadays when the usage of social media is already widespread and inevitable.

But how does social media literacy exactly help with the achievement of quality education? Firstly, social media shares tons of content and information every day. Being social media literate means knowing that relying on content without doing proper research is not the best option; instead, seeking the truth is the best way to go. If equipped with the proper knowledge, one can determine if the content is factual. Not only are you avoiding being victimized by misinformation, but it also helps enhance certain skills such as critical thinking and analysis. With the countless day-to-day interactions and battles with misinformation, the literacy gained helps with achieving quality education.

Additionally, social media literacy plays a crucial role in combating the dissemination of misinformation online. By empowering individuals with the necessary knowledge and skills to critically evaluate information and verify sources before posting content. In essence, it acts as a protective barrier, shielding others from falling victim into false information.

Thus, social media literacy helps individuals achieve quality education by assuring the legitimacy of information gained and disseminated online.

[antifascistfilmclub]

[griseldagimpel]

Prescriptive vs Descriptive

In the spirit of us all having better reading compression, consider this: is the tumblr post you're reading prescriptive or descriptive? Is it saying that things ought to be such-and-such way, or is it saying that things are such-and-such way? Is it advocating for an idea or merely presenting facts about what exists?

Now, after you've made that assessment, don't send hate asks to the person.

[sufficientlylargen]

People migrating to Tumblr from other social media sites may not be used to the blatant misinformation that often circulates on Tumblr; this is why it's important to look at the urls of people who post information here. The above post is by tumblr user @facts-i-just-made-up and as such is filled with misinformation:

Tomorrow will be Thursday: False. Thursday happened already, last week.

Cockroaches are active on Thursdays: False. To save processor time, insects are shut down Wed-Fri. You may see pre-rendered placeholder sprites that look like insects, but they aren't real.

A single month can contain well over 2 Thursdays: Technically true, but deeply misleading. Thursdember (the month that is spread out over the year on a roughly 168-hour cycle), generally has more than forty-five Thursdays each year, but it is the only one. No other month ever has more than one Thursday (except on leap years, when October may have two).

Deaths on Thursdays: Mostly False. While there are at least three recorded instances of nuns dying on Thursdays, it is incredibly rare, and poodles do not die at all (they just transcend the mortal plane). Physicist Albert Rose died on July 26th, 1990, which in modern times would likely be called a "Thursday", but the concept wasn't widely developed at that point and most people at the time just considered it an ordinary Jörmungandrsday.

Car accidents on Thursday: This is technically true, but is true for every weekday - each weekday has five times as many car accidents as one fifth of any other weekday because there are four weekdays and car accidents are illegal and therefore impossible on all of them.

Wearing lipstick on a Thursday will almost always result in pigmentary encrustation of the procheilon tissue: False. Procheilon tissue, believed to be a fire-like tissue released during combustion, is an obsolete scientific theory, which was superseded in the 1770s when Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier demonstrated that the weight of the gas consumed by combustion could be measured, leading to the now-common philtrumation theory of combustion.

Many Thursdays are followed by resulting Fridays: False. This is confusing correlation with causation. Thursdays do not result in Fridays; Fridays, being liminal times only loosely anchored to the arrow of time, are frequently responsible for causing earlier Thursdays, but never the other way around.

This is a good example of why it's important to fact-check information that you read on social media.

Thursday Is Coming: What You Need To Know

As many of you know, tomorrow will be Thursday. Many people find themselves unprepared for Thursday and suffer the consequences. Here’s what you need to know to be safe:

Cockroaches are active on Thursdays.

A single month can contain well over 2 Thursdays.

Physicist Albert Rose died on a Thursday, as did several nuns and a poodle.

There are five times more car accidents on every Thursday than on 1/5 of any other weekday.

Wearing lipstick on a Thursday will almost always result in pigmentary encrustation of the procheilon tissue.

Many Thursdays are followed immediately by a resulting Friday.

Be safe this Thursday and remember that no matter what happens, no Thursday to date has lasted over 24 hours. For more information, please consult the Thursday Awareness hotline at 1627987185.

[rockpapercynic]

The internet is flooded with AI-generated photos and they're getting harder to spot.

Most of the time AI is used for click-farming, but lately images have been used in fake news stories and product scams.

Most important: THINK CRITICALLY. AI will eventually get too good to make obvious mistakes. Being media literate means checking not just if an image is real, but if the source is trustworthy.

If you're not sure, don't share! You might be spreading misinformation.

[terrinakamura]

Social Media’s Impact on Kids – What’s Next for Tech? By Terri Nakamura

Thank you for visiting my blog. Your feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

Keeping kids safe on social media. Photo: Unsplash with Andrej Lišakov Social Media’s Impact on Kids – What’s Next for Tech? During my four days at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I had the opportunity to attend only one panel discussion. I’m grateful that I chose to listen and see this particular one in person. A lengthy queue of eager attendees had formed, all looking forward to hearing…

[alethianightsong]

"I miss when movies weren't political-"

ALIEN is about a megacorporation coercing some salvagers into transporting a dangerous creature without telling them what it is, all because the creature could be a great bioweapon for them. When a survivor of this failed transport mission wants reparations, they screw her over to avoid a scandal.

ROBOCOP is about another mega-corporation experimenting with a cop's body and declaring him their property, trying to reduce him to an obedient killing machine who can maintain the status quo for them.

JURASSIC PARK is about a rich billionaire going all out to make a dinosaur-themed amusement park, not caring about the real-world implications of resurrecting giant lizards. He also underpays ONE guy to maintain the entire park's security systems so predictably, that one guy betrays him at a crucial moment.

The best movies weave their politics with plot & character, so you can enjoy them as entertainment but can also notice the themes. Movies without themes wind up being all spectacle and no substance, just noise and color like Michael Bay's Transformers franchise. Yeah, they make money, but they'll be forgotten in 2 generations.

[restingsusvibes]

I find it helpful to stop and think "what am I supposed to do with this information? What does the OP want me to do with this information?"

A little piece of advice for Americans navigating what will be an increasing number of posts about US politics in the coming year:

If a post makes you feel angry, upset, and hopeless, while offering no actionable information, scroll on and don't reblog it. I know that is going to feel harsh in some cases. But it's important to spend your political energy on what you can actually do and not be sunk into helpless rage and despair that benefits no one.

[parasiticstars]

nooooo little chronically online leftist don’t fall for the media’s pervasive purity testing and villainizing that’s specifically made to divide us and keep us fighting amongst ourselves when we should be focusing on getting the boot off our throats

[irrepressible-domovoy]

I need more people to listen to Midnight Burger

This isn't a "podcasts are the superior form of media" thing, it's a "this is the clearest and most nuanced philosophical discussion of third spaces and their necessity" thing

Midnight Burger is this time traveling, dimension hopping, space traveling burger joint/diner run by a neurotic dad, a Hispanic woman who used to run a taco truck that got shut down because of the pandemic and just loves people, an ex-space pirate genius engineer, a snarky physicist, and two Arkansan baptist ministers from the 30's who exist in an antique radio.

Every single episode is just one more discussion of the need for third spaces and the power of community mixed in with jokes and humor. There's an episode discussing the ethics of having sex with aliens and another where they kill John Wilkes Booth! And both things aren't even the main points of their episode!

I just really need more people to talk about this with

[chasing-clovers]

remember when stranger things fans (fans of a show uplifting nerds and freaks) were cruelly mocked by other supposed fans for acting like *checks notes* typical fandom nerds and freaks?

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

“My therapist told me that, according to psychology, girls who often stay up til 3 am for no reason actually show a trauma response. You lacked a loving mother figure in childhood, so you deprive yourself of sleep because you weren’t taught to love yourself.” 

I came across that piece of info on social media recently, and I’d like to offer an addition: 

My therapist told me that, according to psychology, you can make up random things and pass them off as scientific… if you just put enough meaningless phrases in front of it. 

You probably caught the irony here. In fact, “according to psychology” and “my therapist told me” are completely meaningless phrases in my statement here! They make it seem like I’m presenting a scientific fact, but there’s no substance behind them. I’m just telling you my own thought. 

I did it on purpose and wanted you to catch it, but it can be more tricky to spot out there in the wild (or, well, on social media) - because intuitively, that quote up there sounds pretty trustworthy, doesn’t it? We are taught to look for a source and it conveniently provides one for us: psychology. Psychology says this, so it’s legit! 

But phrases like “according to psychology”, “my therapist says” or even “studies say” may only pose as sources. Let’s look into it a bit closer: 

“According to psychology” - Psychology is not really a source that can be quoted like that. Psychology is an immense field of study that covers lots of different areas (biological psychology, neuroscience, social psychology, behavioral psychology etc.), so who or what exactly is being cited here? A specific expert? A specific study? A specific book? 

“My therapist said” - in which context? Therapists usually give advice that’s tailored to the patient’s individual situation which likely looks different to yours (since no two people lead the exact same life), so how do you know this specific piece of information is also applicable to your situation (let alone applicable to everyone)?

The next one is especially tricky:

“Studies say” - studies can be a great source, but which study are we talking about? Who did the study? How was it done? How many people participated in it? Are the results generalizable in the way the post claims? (And before all that: is there even any specific study being cited at all here, or is this just a fully meaningless claim?) 

While we are on the topic of generalization: obviously I’m not trying to make some blanket statement that everyone who ever uses these phrases is a liar with evil intentions. Sometimes we just use simple phrases for complex concepts to make them more accessible or easily digestible, and that’s fine. 

And just as importantly, sometimes we are just human and make some thinking mistakes (such as “this connection my therapist made about MY childhood and MY behavior in adulthood must be applicable to everyone who shows that behavior. Making that connection helped me, so surely I’m helping others by posting about it!”) without any bad intentions. 

I’m just encouraging you to critically think about the information you read or share online - even beyond the basic “is there a source” check. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[whereserpentswalk]

Just saw a "feminist" video essay (by someone who just happens to only talk about feminism in relation to cishet white able bodied women) say that the Hays Code was good for women because it "prevented them from sexualizing women by preventing onscreen depictions of sex". Never before has a video said something that made me vocalize my disgust of it's takes, but this did it.

I didn't think I would have to say this but if you defend the Hays code you are horrible and not in any way progressive. And if you don't know what it is please look it up because it's probably the most important piece of history when it comes to all media analysis in the western world.

[browncoatsareinthetardis]

So me and a friend were talking. And we were like why was Liam getting the most hate when 1D ended. And we came to this idea/ conclusion that Liam was the first to pull off the rose colored glasses of what we, the GP, thought of 1D. He was the first to say yeah “if we continued I would have died” and “yeah being in a boyband really f**ked me up” and that stung for directioners. People were mad that they weren’t living all the sunshine and rainbows that we were sold by their media team. We wanted the facade that it was all great. And Liam told us it wasn’t and people were mad.

[fluffypinkposts]

Sinners 2025 vs media literacy

[lupamoe]

It's always "haha ruby loves her brother thats incest"

but never "ruby lacks any emotional love and support in her entire life as a bed-ridden kid and skipped the emotional developmental stages of her childhood so she dosen't know whats normal or disgusting, likewise, this makes her like gorou. it's a sign that she will cling desperately to anyone who cares for her the slightest because ruby's 'love for her doctor' is a coping mechanism formed to forget and shield everything she's been through and because she has no options. this makes her genuinely not know the difference between platonic and romantic love as she has never experienced either in her miserable life."