Crap Detection 101

In this video, Howard Reingold concentrates on “critical consumption” — or crap detection — as one of five essential literacies for the Internet.  Reingold’s five literacies for the Internet are attention, participation, cooperation, critical consumption, and network awareness, and he has been developing curriculum projects around each of these.  

Critical consumption links with what many might also call information literacy — basic capacities for search and critical capacities for determining credibility. As Reingold argues, critical consumption is less about technical skills than about an attitude toward information in general that is closely aligned with critical thinking.