{"id":270656,"date":"2023-07-03T06:49:26","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T06:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=270656"},"modified":"2023-07-04T07:11:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T07:11:25","slug":"schools-should-teach-children-how-to-spot-conspiracy-theories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=270656","title":{"rendered":"Schools \u2018should teach children how to spot conspiracy theories\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catherine Lough \u2013 The Telegraph July 2, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Students should be taught how to counter conspiracy theories<\/a> on the school curriculum, a University of Cambridge scholar has said.<\/p>\n

Prof Sander van der Linden<\/a>, an expert on social psychology, said that one of the solutions to conspiracist thinking<\/a> could be to \u201cimplement this stuff in national education curriculums\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking about his new book, Foolproof, at the Chalke Valley History Festival in Wiltshire, he added that Finland scored highly on the ability to spot misinformation<\/a> and that this was \u201cbecause they are preparing kids, you know teenagers, on how to spot propaganda\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, historically, they\u2019ve shared a border with Russia for a long time \u2013 so they\u2019re keenly aware of the dangers of propaganda,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think we would probably be well served by making sure again \u2013 not telling our kids and our students<\/a> what they need to believe, but preparing them to spot the techniques of manipulation<\/a> from as early on as possible and that will maybe help.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2019, the OECD\u2019s programme for international student assessment study found that teenagers in east Asia were more adept at distinguishing between fact and fiction than their British counterparts.<\/p>\n

Overall, the study found that fewer than one in 10 students globally could determine between fact and fiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Finnish government introduced an anti-fake news initiative in its schools from 2014. The country also tops the Media Literacy Index, an index of 41 countries across Europe which measures their vulnerability to fake news.<\/p>\n

Prof Van der Linden said that the human brain processed repeated information more quickly than new information, which allowed them to be manipulated into believing fake news.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIf you\u2019ve heard something before, the brain is literally faster at processing that new information and it uses that as a signal for veracity.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that works well in a number of ways. But people spreading misinformation can take advantage of that. And that\u2019s true for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that key elements of conspiracist thinking<\/a> involved being incoherent or contradictory, that they involved suspicion of others, and the belief that the schemes or conspiracies had \u201cnefarious intent\u201d and would usually involve someone as a \u201cpersecuted victim\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that it was important to almost inoculate society against conspiracy theories<\/a> as one would with a virus, and that the growth of deepfakes<\/a> and ChatGPT capabilities could amplify the spread of disinformation.<\/p>\n

\u2018Magical thinking a gateway to conspiracy theories\u2019<\/h2>\n

Prof Van der Linden said that spiritual belief, or \u201cmagical thinking\u201d, could serve as a gateway to a conspiracist mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther forms of magical thinking are superstition. Things you see on TikTok now with\u00a0 younger people is \u2018manifesting\u2019, so the idea that if you think positive thoughts, you\u2019re going to concretely shift things \u2013 so maybe I don\u2019t want this person to break up with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if I say it a hundred times on TikTok, it\u2019s not going to happen. And you see thousands of kids doing this, and I think partly it\u2019s because the world is in not such a nice place.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople need a way to feel positive and that\u2019s great. But this kind of magical thinking is a gateway to conspiracy theories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n

Courtesy camo khazi<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The scholar who says that schools should teach about \u2018conspiracy theories\u2019 cites Finland as an example of the ability to spot misinformation. Interestingly though, he doesn\u2019t mention Finland\u2019s relaxed, almost skeptical response to the Covid pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind_control"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270656"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270664,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270656\/revisions\/270664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}