Where are all the digital literacy programs?
*insert John Travolta meme*
I call this my (mostly) monthly newsletter because some months I forget to post (silly leap year messing up my scheduled reminders) and some months I have something more to say. December is one such month. …of the latter not the former.
Today, I want to talk about digital literacy. A topic near and dear to my heart and flying dangerously close to the sun for becoming a buzzword that starts to mean everything and nothing.
We are woefully underprepared to live in a digitized society. We are terrible at identifying misinformation, online scams are rampant (and hugely successful), and there is a general lack of knowledge of how humans should interact with each other online. The need for formalized educational efforts for digital literacy (i.e., our ability to be literate in online spaces) is dire. We need resources for online safety, digital civics, and digital citizenship at a population level.
There have been many calls for digital literacy programs over the last decade. Not only from myself (which I shout from the rooftops any chance I get) but from governments, organizations, and academic institutions. While resources have been created in these different echo chambers of thought, no one has stepped up to fund, implement, and disseminate on the scale that we need it. My YouTube channel isn't going to save the world (despite my best efforts).
For example, we need to know how to find accurate sources of information online (yes I made a YouTube video on this exact topic, but ‘shockingly’ it is one of my least viewed). To learn that we have to actually look beyond a sensationalized headline (lest we start to believe Among Us is an assassination simulator). To sift between misinformation and disinformation. What “doing your own research” actually means. To protect ourselves from scams. How, when, and why to flag platforms when we suspect something bad is happening. To understand the long-term, mental health impact of online harassment. To create a digital future where people are… dare I dream, kind to each other? To finally have that collective “a-ha” moment and acknowledge that online and offline is a false dichotomy (one day I will have my TED talk on this last point… one day).
This week there was a fantastic NYT guest essay from Eliot Higgins, an expert on how disinformation spreads on social media. In this piece, he reflects on the fact that disinformation online is not something we can “fact check” ourselves out of (though reiterating that fact checkers are important). As he states in this piece, we need the skills and tools to “empower individuals to think independently, question sources, and understand the complexity of the endless information available on the internet”.
So where do we start? I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some suggestions.
Bring digital literacy programs into the classroom
Perhaps the most obvious place to start would be education in the classrooms. Topics relating to online safety, digital civics and digital citizenship, as well as privacy, human rights, and ethics.
In Finland they have already integrated lessons around mis- and disinformation into the curriculum for young children. Teaching them to avoid hoaxes, scams, and identify disinformation. And while it may be a big ask to suggest starting with entirely new programs (though that would be the ideal end state), civics is taught in (some) schools and we could start with updating that curriculum to include how to navigate online spaces.
When drafting this post, I scoured the internet (and asked my network) for other programs that exist in the classroom and sadly, there were few examples that are funded, integrated, and implemented in educational settings. That said, there are some programs that already exist in the world and show efficacy, but they exist in underfunded pockets. If you are an educator, advocate, or curious bystander, here are the suggestions I was given:
Media Capture, Control, and Misinformation in the Digital Age
Spunout Academy: Mental health and emotional well-being online
Now, as I mentioned above I understand that for some schools, adding an entirely new course is just not a feasible option. This is where games can come in. If we could get Oregon trail in my school in the 90s there's no reason we can't get Cat Park (my favorite game about disinformation) in every school.
We need to reach out to our local officials, school board representatives, and bring these concerns up to our local PTA to get these kinds of resources into our classrooms. Digital literacy is foundational to our lives in the 21st century and we cannot continue to rely on children to essentially “teach themselves” through trial and error. This has already shown to have devastating consequences and also be a completely ineffective approach (not to be dramatic… but the situation has reached a critical point).
Provide tools to facilitate safety and support on platforms.
Step one is understanding the expectations and parameters around engagement. Step two is moving from learning into practice.
In offline spaces we talk a lot about book smarts and street smarts - so it is time to think about how we can bolster our “digital street” smarts? Because school is just one opportunity for teaching these skills - on the platforms, is another.
Many platforms provide the basic tools to block, mute, and report offending users. But we have to move beyond that.
Again, there are pockets of innovation. Discord has a lot of resources in their Safety Library, but you have to know where to look to find it. Electronic Arts’ Positive Play Charter has integrated splash screens at the start of some of their games reminding people how to behave in online spaces (i.e., fairly, with respect, etc.). But this is only true for some of their titles and EA is only one of many game studios that exist. Epic gave us cabined accounts this year which I think is the single greatest tooling innovation we have seen in games in the last decade, in relation to trust and safety. But again, they are just one studio. The Thriving in Games Group (formally Fair Play Alliance) launched an entire design playbook to help games create spaces that mitigate harm and encourage positive play in games. This project is just getting started and has a long way to grow, especially in terms of studios integrating this information. (Relatedly, the Polaris game design retreat also put out a framework around prosocial design which is one of the best approaches I’ve seen in this space in the last few years).
This innovation is great and worthy of recognition because it gives us a starting point to grow from. Let’s build from what these organizations have begun into industry wide innovation and integration. Knowing that many tools exist for education (such as EA’s Positive Play) and implementation (such as the Thriving in Games Playbook), how can we bring platforms together to integrate these innovations across all platforms and games when possible. For example, the splash screen from EA’s Positive Play initiative is not even present in all EA games? Why not?
(Let’s also remember that positive cultures are good for business)
Get the Community Involved
Children turn to their parents and teachers for their digital literacy education… and have been for the last decade. And for parents and educators who are able to provide this, we see positive outcomes (for example, research has found significant, positive relationships between digital literacy, the role of parents, and critical thinking skills of elementary school students). However, not all parents are regularly talking to their children about these issues. This is, at least partially, because parents themselves do not always feel like they have the tools, knowledge, or skills to feel competent to do so.
So how can we help parents help their children? It goes back to that old saying: it takes a village.
Community support (libraries, schools, NGOs promoting these kinds of curriculum) and accessible online resources (in a place where parents can find them) are both good places to start. However, these two spaces also suffer the same drawbacks as my classroom suggestions - they are sporadic, in various pockets of the world, and often parents are not aware these resources even exist.
So how can we get these resources to parents, where they are right now? In a way that is easy to adopt, understand, and share with their children? Here is where my big blue sky idea comes in…
We need a well-funded, well-disseminated, well-resourced series of public service announcements around digital literacy topics. You may say I’m a dreamer (but I know I’m not the only one). For example, what would be the equivalent of “only you can prevent forest fires” but in the context of digital competencies?
Only you can… curate a community free from hate where everyone can thrive.
Only you can… prevent disinformation from crumbling democracy.
Granted, those don’t roll off the tongue but I am not saying I have the exact answer. What I am asking is, why are educational services (such as the Department of Education in the US*) not funding, resourcing, and prioritizing these initiatives?
*current political climate excluded from this conversation as I am keenly aware in the US there have been talks to dissolve that department
Concluding thoughts
Digital literacy and digital civics are just as (if not more) important for the primary users of the platform (i.e., young people) as they are for the gatekeepers of the platform (parents). There are many options today for programs that teach the basics around various aspects of digital literacy in schools, in communities, and online. It is a lot to ask one group to take the onus upon themselves - the users, the teachers, or the parents. It takes a village of people (and funding).
Digital literacy is critical to life in the 21st century and we cannot continue to rely on individuals to essentially “teach themselves” through trial and error. This has already shown to have devastating consequences and also be a completely ineffective approach.
Other places you can find my musings…
Personal Website, for more about my research and upcoming events. Which I recently updated! Take a look if you haven’t been there in a while (#OpenToWork)
Psychgeist, my YouTube channel dedicated to the science of digital games. New videos are released sporadically on Wednesdays and if you aren’t a subscriber yet, please click that link and hit that big red button. Subscribing is FREE and is the easiest way to support my work by increasing engagement and making the algorithm happy.
BlueSky, for those who have migrated over
LinkedIn, if that is more your style
Most Recent Save Podcast, go ahead, give it a like. I promise you’ll love it.