How We Can Make the Internet Helpful Again

by Jeffrey A. Greene, Ph.D., the McMichael Professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Remember when the Internet was fun? I do. It used to be a place where we could connect with our friends, meet interesting new people, get the news as it happened, and even leverage collective action to make the world a better place. Now, with an infodemic of ads, misinformation, and manipulation, it feels like the Internet uses us more than we use it. In fact, in a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll for the American Psychological Association, 82 percent of people worried others may be basing their values and opinions on false or inaccurate information and 56 percent worried about unknowingly spreading misinformation themselves. Taking back our Internet, and making it useful again, is possible. But it is going to take some work. Similar to how we have to decide what food to put in our body, or how museums decide what to display, each of us needs to become curators of the information and sources we rely upon online.

Our online “diet” becomes the food we use to think and learn, in ways we realize as well as ways we do not. When a ridiculous headline appears in my social media feed, I typically scroll right past it. But if I see that headline a lot, even if I think I am consciously dismissing it, does it have some effect on what I think about, and how I think about it? The research evidence says yes: Repeated exposure to misinformation can affect how we think and behave, even when we know that information is unreliable. Therefore, making the Internet helpful again means each of us must actively curate what we encounter online.

Curation is hard work. We must be appropriately critical of the information we encounter online. But checking every piece of information you see online would take you forever, so it is even more important to curate a set of information sources you trust. When you trust your sources, you don’t need to check every single thing they say. I use the acronym SHARES to help me decide which online sources I should trust, and which I should not.

• Stay in their lane. It is very difficult to become an expert in something, and it is rare for people to have deep expertise in more than just a few areas. Therefore, a source who frequently pontificates on topics outside of their area of expertise, also called epistemic trespassing, should be scrutinized and, perhaps, unfollowed. A source that stays in their lane is a source that SHARES well.

• Humble. We all have strong opinions, hopefully based on positive values and solid evidence. Experts, in particular, should have strong opinions. Nonetheless, they should also be intellectually humble, or willing and able to question those opinions when confronted with new, credible evidence. A source in your Internet feed who never questions their opinion is a source who SHARES poorly, and perhaps should be curated out of your feed.

• Accountable. Obtaining some kind of credential that indicates someone is an expert, like a doctoral degree, is a wonderful achievement. But that does not mean the person can just say whatever they want from that point forward. Experts, and the information they share, should be monitored and evaluated by an outside, trusted source, such as an accrediting body or a licensing board. An expert who knows they will be held accountable for what they put on the Internet is more likely to be an expert who SHARES useful and helpful information.

• Reliable. What makes information useful and helpful? Many philosophers, journalists, and scientists say useful and helpful information is reliable. Reliable information is information that helps you understand the world and make good decisions in it. An expert who SHARES well is one whose claims, more often than not, help you live a better life. When a source’s information does not reliably make your life better, you should curate them out of your Internet.

• Endorsed. The more expert consensus there is on an idea, the more we should trust it and the sources who endorse it. Mike Caulfield has developed the SIFT method for checking whether one source’s claim is also endorsed by other trusted sources. Again, it is a lot of work to check every claim you encounter on the Internet, which is why we want a source that SHARES useful and helpful information. But occasionally we should use SIFT to make sure our trusted source is still producing information that is endorsed by other trusted sources.

• Self-regulated. The Internet, and particularly social media, can tempt people into useless arguments, or punching down on people with less status, or other actions that might feel good in the moment but ultimately do not serve people’s long-term goals. A source that cannot self-regulate by resisting those temptations is a source that SHARES poorly.

The Internet was never perfect and has always required its users to be thoughtful about what they learn and do on it. But it is also true that it has never been more dangerous. Curating your Internet, so each source you follow SHARES well, can help you regain control of what you learn online, making your Internet helpful, and maybe even fun, again.