We’re all constantly browsing the web thanks to our phones, even in moments when we should probably disconnect and pay attention to what’s happening in our offline life. This is particularly true for parents — many of us stress about our kids and their screen time, all while the glow of our own phones light our face. 

But what if I told you that a certain web-browsing technique could actually be educational, and help your kids avoid misinformation in the future? Research has found that lateral reading, a method employed by journalism fact checkers, is particularly helpful in spotting misinformation. In her book, Hello, Cruel World!: Science-Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times, author Melinda Wenner Moyer posits that parents can teach their kids this skill to help them navigate the minefield of misinformation that can be social media.

So, pull out your phone (or stay on it, because you’re probably reading this on mobile anyway) and learn about lateral reading, the research technique that you can model for your teens to make them savvier internet users. 

Lateral reading vs. vertical reading

The concept of lateral reading sprang from research published in 2019 that looked at how undergraduate students and PhD candidates evaluate the legitimacy of online sources, versus how journalistic fact checkers approach the same task. The students largely practiced vertical reading, or assessing a site’s legitimacy by staying within that particular website, looking at the “about” page or other articles on the same site. Fact checkers practiced lateral reading, which means leaving the website to figure out its legitimacy. Instead of checking out information available on the site in question, fact checkers would Google the site’s name, read articles the site is mentioned in, and assess its legitimacy using third-party sources. 

For example, researchers presented their subjects with articles on bullying from two sources: The American Academy of Pediatrics and The American College of Pediatricians. The former is the largest professional association of pediatricians, which publishes trusted and innovative research on children’s health. The latter is a small anti-LGBTQ group classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

Researchers tasked their subjects with evaluating whether these sites were credible sources of information on bullying. Fact checkers aced the test, weeding out The American College of Pediatricians as untrustworthy. PhD and undergraduate students didn’t fare quite as well. Researchers determined that the fact checking practice of lateral reading is likely to thank for that group’s success. Instead of just reading the The American College of Pediatricians’s “about us” page or looking around the group’s website, fact checkers Googled the group, quickly finding articles and sources that note its biased view. The vertical readers who stayed on the group’s site were much less successful in finding its bias.

Drawing in outside sources can help thwart misinformation because it gives a wider scope, which the researchers in this study also called “taking bearings,” adopting a navigation term. There are many ways to make a website seem legitimate, so taking a moment to get acquainted with what others are saying about the site (particularly what already trusted sources are saying) can give you a better understanding of where certain information might be coming from and what interests it might serve. 

What this means for teens

Teaching young people lateral reading is an easy and quick way to help them suss out misinformation in their digital lives, which we know is a net positive. The same researchers who conducted that lateral reading experiment in 2019 followed up on their work with a 2022 study that applied their theory to high school students. They found that high schoolers who employed lateral reading could better determine the veracity of their sources, and evaluate online information like whether Facebook posts shared online were accurate. 

We know that young people are largely getting their news from social media, so teaching them how to determine what information is credible and what may be misinformation is crucial. Creators can contribute by using lateral reading to research their sources before sharing information, and on the other end, we can educate our kids on how to use lateral reading to make sure they’re getting accurate news. 

In her book Hello, Cruel World! Wenner Moyer notes that educating young people on lateral reading can be as simple as modeling the practice for your teens, showing them how you hop around websites to determine a source’s legitimacy. There are online courses (developed by these same researchers) to help you learn lateral reading best practices that you can take on your own or with your kids. You can also familiarize yourself with the SIFT method developed by Michael Caulfield at Washington State University, which calls for you to “Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; and Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context.” 

Or, you can simply talk your way through it. When your kid brings up some information they learned on TikTok, ask where that information originated from. Do a quick search on the source and ask what your kid thinks. Next thing you know, you’re all lateral-reading, misinformation-spotting whizzes, and you don’t even have to put down your phone to accomplish it.