What are the Media Literacy Skills Good Citizens Need in the Tiktok and AI Era?

Mark Your Streaming Calendar: July 9th

In the ‘90s, a cool guy from Star Trek taught me to love books and talk about them. A lady named Carmen Sandiego taught me geography and how neat the world’s diverse cultures are. And four adolescent turtles and a talking rat taught me… that pizza is the best food in the world.

(I literally wore Ninja Turtles shirts in four out of five annual elementary school photos. Here I am in 1st grade.)

I now have a three-year-old son who’s about to grow up in a very different world than I did.

He will know no reality that doesn’t contain smartphones, social media, or fake news. He will be blasted with advertisements nonstop. I joke that he and his toddler peers need to train to fight in the upcoming Robot Wars. But if we’re talking about generative AI content, yes, yes he will—digitally at least. If he’s to be a good citizen, a reliable team member, and a positive participant in his community, he’s going to need to be discerning about information, reality, and humanity.

A 2022 study by Reboot Foundation with Media Literacy Now showed that 84% of today’s parents wish their kids were taught media literacy in school. By the time most children start kindergarten, they have already spent thousands of hours consuming content. Less than half of all adults have any sort of education on media literacy. The number of adults who don’t realize that, “Just cuz it rhymes, doesn’t mean it’s true” is evidenced by the success of manipulative political slogans, cable pundits, and misleading influencer advertising we see literally every day.

What those adults (and the kids in their lives) need is a Reading Rainbow for media literacy. A Carmen Sandiego for critical thinking.

And… voila! We made that show:

Voila makes it sound easier than it’s been. It’s taken years of perseverance, creativity, and the right amount of delusion, but I’m thrilled to share that this week Variety announced that our show, Fluff Piece, starts streaming on July 9th! We’ll have new episodes debuting weekly this summer, with a second season coming later this year.

So I know most of you who read my newsletters are here for the business stories and scientific studies about working smarter and getting better together, but today I’d like to personally ask you to mark your calendar and spread the word about Fluff Piece, launching July 9th on Amazon Prime Video’s Wonder Project channel. (We and Wonder would be thrilled if you checked out a free trial of the channel by the way!)

I’ll be reaching back out that day to ask you to tell the kids in your life to check out the show, which is as fun as it is educational. It looks like Wes Anderson meets Wizard of Oz, it’s got an amazing soundtrack (coming soon to Spotify), dancers from the world famous Joffrey Ballet, and a green dog named Fluff!

To give you a tease—and answer the question in the title of this newsletter:

Here’s what we believe kids (and the adults in their lives) need to learn about media literacy that will make them better citizens in the era of TikTok and AI:

• Even a good, educated guess is not the same as a fact. A strong theory is not the same thing as an actual observation.

• Asking “What’s the source of that information?” is the one simple habit that will cut through so much of the *fluff* that comes at us in our lives each day

• If someone stands to make money from you, use it as a cue to look a little closer at the label, or to do a little more research about them

• Filming, posting, and sharing is nice, but helping out other human beings usually involves more than tapping on your phone

• When you learn something that makes you feel strongly, the feeling signals that this could be important to you, and if it’s important, that means you should slow down and think

• Whoever smelt it is not necessarily who dealt it.

And much more! And all of the above are episode topics in Fluff Piece’s first season.

I’d be honored if you followed our new show at @fluffpieceshow on Instagram. And please mark your calendar to spread the word or check the show out on July 9th!

Here’s a Google Calendar invite link for yourself to make it easy. And here’s Outlook.

Make a great day—and thanks for supporting!

Shane