fact checking
there's anecdotal evidence that young people have learned to fact check things they hear about on the internet. whereas old people don't. which kinda makes sense. old people grew up in a time when the tv news programs were pretty reliable. course there were only two or three channels. and the only competition for information was the newspaper. being accurate was an important part of the news' image. heck, our news program was call accunews. heh. so it's really not surprising that grandma takes the internet news at face value. whereas young people who've commented before fact checking have been viciously flame pwned often enough they've learned to look before leaping. the purpose of a headline is to get you to click the link. because that's the revenue stream. accurately and concisely summarizing the article is contra-indicated. cause if the headline is good, i don't need to click through to the article. and you get no advertising micropennies. my first instinct is skepticism. ergo, i'm a young person. and not an old fart. yet. whew. that's reassuring. cause some days if feel old.