Think You Can Tell Fake News From Real? New Study Says 'Think Again'

Despite confidence in their soft skills, including critical thinking, a majority of young professionals in the 2nd Annual State of Critical Thinking Study commissioned by Massachusetts-based educational technology company MindEdge Learning resoundingly flunked a quiz that assessed their critical thinking skills specifically when applied to digital literacy. The nine questions in the quiz targeted the respondents' ability to distinguish fake news on the internet from reliable, factual content. Getting the questions right demanded one pay attention to details of style (use of all caps, presence or absence of photo credits, words such as "promoted" or spelling errors, etc.) as well as technical aspects such as broken links and recognizable domains. I asked MindEdge if I could see the survey questions and took the quiz myself. I am pretty sure I got all 9 questions right.