Jordan Robinson

9:00 a.m.: I started my day by watching a health video about high protein diets. The video focused on the benefits of eating more protein and made high-protein diets seem like a good way to improve health and possibly lose weight. I found this interesting, but I also realized that health advice on social media can be presented as fact even when it may not tell the whole story. This made me question whether the information in the video was supported by reliable evidence.

11:00 a.m.: I scrolled through TikTok and watched several sports-related videos. The content included sports clips, highlights, and reactions. Most of this was entertainment rather than serious news, so I did not feel the need to fact-check everything I watched. However, it made me notice how quickly social media can give me more of the same type of content once I start watching it.

1:00 p.m.: I came across content about sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln allegedly being mistreated. The post discussed difficult conditions aboard the aircraft carrier and concerns about the sailors’ well-being. At first, I was skeptical because social media posts can exaggerate stories to get attention. However, after looking into the story, I found that there was legitimate reporting behind at least some of these concerns. Recent reporting from the Associated Press and Reuters confirmed that  Abraham Lincoln had spent an unusually long 286 days at sea and that sailors had experienced concerns involving mental health, food shortages, and the difficulties of an extremely long deployment. This showed me that a story appearing on social media is not necessarily false just because the original post may be sensationalized. I would be more likely to trust the information after finding confirmation from established news organizations.

3:00 p.m.: I spent some time scrolling through political Instagram posts. One of the themes I noticed was extremely partisan content claiming that Democrats were responsible for essentially all of the country’s problems. This was one of the examples that I considered the least credible because the claim was so broad. Instead of providing evidence for individual issues, the posts blamed one political party for many different problems. I would not consider this a reliable source of information because it appeared to be designed more to persuade and provoke an emotional reaction than to provide balanced evidence. Pew Research Center found that eight in ten Americans believe Republican and Democratic voters cannot agree on basic facts about important issues, and many people say that partisans receive different information altogether. This helped put what I was seeing on Instagram into perspective. Political social media can create an environment where people repeatedly see information that supports one side while rarely seeing opposing viewpoints.

6:00 p.m.: I watched anime for entertainment. Unlike the political and health-related content I encountered earlier, I was not watching this for factual information, so I did not have any particular reason to fact-check it. This was a reminder that not all of my media consumption is intended to inform me. A large portion of media is simply entertainment.

Fact-Checking and Reflection

The high-protein video was another example where I realized that the truth was more complicated than a social-media video might suggest. Harvard’s Nutrition Source explains that protein is an important nutrient and that higher protein diets can have benefits, but it also emphasizes that the source of the protein matters. It does not suggest that people should simply consume as much protein as possible. This made me more skeptical of health influencers who present one diet as a universal solution.

Overall, I noticed that questionable information was most common in content involving politics, health, or controversial news. Entertainment content, such as sports TikToks and anime, did not raise the same concerns. I also noticed that emotional and extreme statements were more likely to catch my attention. The political posts blaming Democrats for all problems are a good example because an exaggerated claim can be more attention-grabbing than a balanced explanation.

This activity made me realize that I should not automatically believe something just because it appears repeatedly on my social media feed. I am especially likely to fact-check claims that involve politics or health because those subjects can have real consequences. Going forward, I would look for the original source, compare the claim with information from reliable organizations, and avoid sharing something until I have a better idea of whether it is accurate. The biggest lesson from this activity was that being exposed to information is not the same thing as being informed.