大象传媒

How critical a reader are you? I've been trawling through my long neglected bloglines account and found this post on which As I discovered during our Gen Next programme the web is the number one source for homework, but researchers found students aren't great at spotting a hoax - in this case a octopus. The site included such informative facts as the octopus was endangered because of:

predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch

Hmmm...in spite of "clues" like this researchers found that::

• All 25 students fell for the Internet hoax;
  
• All but one of the 25 rated the site as 鈥渧ery credible;鈥�
  
• Most struggled when asked to produce proof 鈥� or even clues 鈥� that the web site was false, even after the UConn researchers told them it was; and
  
• Some of the students still insisted vehemently that the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus really exists.

The researchers recommend better training students on how to use the net. Now if anything I think people are more inclined to skeptical about what they find on the internet than what they see on TV or in print. So I'm not sure why you'd limit training in critical reading to online sources only. And as for people still believing things they shouldn't - well you still hear plenty of grown-ups claiming that and, a personal favourite, that Walt Disney has been I've believed both of those in my time.