The number of times I see people respond to things on the internet in a way that makes it painfully clear they either did not fully read what they just saw or didn’t fully grasp what they just consumed is more than a little concerning to me. Media literacy on social media matters, now more than ever.
And I’m not trying to be an intellectual elitist and say everyone should analyze every post like it’s a peer-reviewed journal article they need to cite in conversation later. I’m just saying, even small examples of poor media literacy are a symptom of a much bigger problem that has led to the political and economic climate that a lot of us Americans aren’t enjoying all that much.
This came up because I shared a video of a one-armed woman in Florida who is going to court this week for supposedly texting and driving with a phone in her non-existent right hand. I shared the video and the comment I made on it to Threads because it was getting traction on the Reel on Instagram, and I think I’m funny.
The number of people who saw my Thread, saw the video with someone else’s screen name on it just millimeters below my name and note, and still somehow assumed that I was the woman with one arm in the video was as I said… concerning. Never mind the fact that I have two arms in my profile picture. And in my photos. And in my videos. On every platform.
The problem is not that people made a silly mistake. We all misread things sometimes especially when we’re scrolling fast. The problem is that people are not paying attention to the information that is quite literally written on the screen to help them understand what they are looking at.
This was about a stupid court case in Florida. But when people display that level of media illiteracy and carelessness over a random video on Threads, I have to wonder if people are reading things closely when it actually matters…
From what I see as I scroll – the answer is no.
This is not the first time I’ve seen this happen, either. People comment my own content every day and make it super clear they did not read the caption I bothered to write, same for other creators. I’ve had people comment on things I reshared on Threads and get mad at me for not giving proper credit, even though the proper credit is right there if you open your eyes and look at all of the piece of informationin the post you are already looking at. I have people right now saying “link” repeatedly on a video that is CLEARLY a DIY tutorial for shoe grips – the items you need are shown in the video, in the on-screen captions, and in the video caption itself, AND there’s no prompt asking people to comment a keyword for a DM. It’s insane.
So many things about the internet today make me have a lot of sympathy for older people who’ve had to adapt on the fly. My parents and grandparents have had to develop digital media literacy while the internet and the technology to access it keeps changing around them. If it is apparently this hard for people my age, or just a little older than me, to navigate Threads and understand what they are looking at, how hard is it for someone who is 60, 70, 80, or 90 years old to adapt?
Social media and the internet are not always intuitive to navigate, and every platform has its own weird little language.
A repost does not mean someone made the original post. A stitched video is not always the person speaking. A screenshot may be from somewhere else entirely. A comment on a video does not automatically mean the commenter is the person in the video. A headline is not the whole story. A caption may contain the actual context you are missing.
And on top of that, the interfaces are constantly changing. Every app has its own way of showing usernames, captions, comments, original audio, reposts, stitches, shares, quotes, and replies. Sometimes the original creator’s name is obvious. Sometimes it is tiny. Sometimes the caption is collapsed. Sometimes the reposted context is separated from the original post. Sometimes the thing you need to understand what you are looking at is technically on the screen, but the app has made it incredibly easy to miss.
That adds another layer to media literacy that I don’t think we talk about enough. It is not just “can you tell if this source is credible?” anymore. It is also: Do you understand what part of the screen you are looking at? Do you know who posted it? Do you know who is being quoted? Do you know whether this is original content, a reaction, a repost, or a screenshot of something from another platform entirely?
That is exactly what happened with the video I shared. The original video had someone else’s username on it. My post was clearly me resharing it with my own comment. But because people did not slow down long enough to process the layout of the post, the video, and the usernames involved, they somehow landed on the idea that I was the one-armed woman going to court in Florida.
Which is funny, but also a little worrying. If people can miss that much context on a low-stakes post, what are they missing when the topic is actually serious? What are they missing when the post is about politics, public health, crime, war, money, local news, or someone’s reputation? What are they missing when the mistake is not just funny, but harmful?
I specifically remember multiple assignments in middle and high school dedicated to teaching us how to practice media literacy and gather information from credible sources. We had to learn what did and did not make a source trustworthy. We had to compare coverage of the same event from different outlets and explore opposing arguments. We had to identify bylines, sources, quotes, bias, context, and the difference between fact and interpretation.
I went to a very progressive school in liberal Southern California, so I probably had more of that training than other people did. That’s where my concern comes from… now we’re all adults using platforms where misinformation can spread faster than people can think, and a lot of people seem to be reacting to content before they understand what they’re looking at.
Again, I am not saying everyone needs to be perfect. I have definitely misread posts before. I have definitely reacted too quickly. I have definitely had moments where I needed to slow down and reread something before responding, or delete a comment because I realized it was really obvious I wasn’t paying attention.
But that’s kind of the point – we all need to slow down.
Read the caption. Look at the username. Notice whether something was reposted. Ask where the information came from. Click through when something feels incomplete. Pay attention to whether you are responding to the original creator, someone resharing it, or just the first person whose post put it in front of you.
Media literacy, especially media literacy on social media, is not just about knowing which news outlets are credible. It is also about knowing how to look at the screen in front of you and understand what it is actually showing you.
And based on what I see every day online, we are not doing nearly as well at that as we should be.
