Ask the Editor: Teaching discernment

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: Ask the Editor.

Editor in Chief Les Sillars tackles a timely listener question: How do we raise kids to tell truth from lies in a world flooded with online deception? The information landscape is changing fast—and parents are feeling the pressure.

LES SILLARS: Listener Becky Manring wrote in to observe that parents are rightly concerned about things their kids can access online, from gambling to pornography. But her question is a little different. She pointed out that the days of everybody getting their news from mainstream sources are long gone. There’s a lot of damaging trash and nonsense out there posing as news and helpful information. She wrote:

BECKY MANRING: I want to know, how do I teach my kids to evaluate resources for truth-telling? I know how to catechize my children. But how do I help them move beyond recitation and into application when it comes to evaluating truth?

Becky, it sounds like a two-part question. First, I think you’re asking, in a digital world, how do we know who or what to trust? Second, how do we help our children to actually use discernment?

Those are among the most important questions facing our culture today. And you’re absolutely right: we need to teach our children and grandchildren how to figure this out for themselves. Because it’s going to get a lot harder. And a list of “Ten Tips for Protecting Your Child Online” is not going to get it done.

Before the internet, figuring out who to trust was often easier. We got much of our information from people we knew personally. Family. People we worked with. Went to church with. People with whom we had history. We knew from experience whether we should believe them and whether they could be trusted.

Information about the outside world came to us from various media: newspapers, networks, books, movies, and so on. These were difficult and expensive to produce but some reached many, many people. A writer or broadcaster had to have a certain amount of credibility. Reliability. So it was easier to evaluate sources.

Today anybody with a cellphone can combine personal charisma with worldwide reach. Digital technology made possible the Age of the Influencer, and the coin of the realm is authenticity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. These people look into the camera and say, “Hey, this is who I am. You know me. You can trust me.” And if they’re smart and believable and appealing enough, they can peddle any kind of garbage they want.

And now we have AI. It raises a lot of questions, but the obvious point is that we can no longer presume to take at face value anything digital. Things that we used to presume were basically accurate depictions of reality–images, voices, and videos. Those days are over.

So, back to the original question: how do we figure out who to trust?

My best suggestion is to treat online sources with the same skepticism we’d give a stranger approaching us at midnight in a dark alley. Do not think in terms of authenticity. Don’t ask, does this person seem really genuine? Attractive? Appealing?

Rather ask, Who is this person? Why do they want my attention? What motives do they have for telling me this? Do they have a history of being reliable? Do they use reliable sources themselves? Is their message consistent with reality?

Those aren’t easy questions to answer, about either a podcaster or a national network. But we have to ask them. Relentlessly.

This doesn’t mean we don’t ever believe anything new. It’s a weird world out there. And we don’t want to be like those dwarves in C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, closing our eyes and ears to the reality unfolding around us. But, just, don’t be gullible.

As for helping our children learn to be discerning, this is the most useful thing I can suggest: Be for your children a source of reliable and trustworthy information. Be clear-eyed about the world around you. Measure all claims against Scripture. Discuss with your children important topics in an age-appropriate way. Explain to them, “This is why I believe this is true and that is false.” And don’t traffic in nonsense yourself.

Finally, show your children what trust looks like in a healthy community. Build trust with your family, friends, and brothers and sisters in your church. Be honest and kind. Admit mistakes. Give them a model of what life can be like in relationships where people have integrity. Show them, in all of your life, how to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

If you have a question for Ask the Editor, I’d love to hear from you. Please–feel free to send an email or voice message to me at editor@wng.org

And one more favor: if you hear a good story on this program, would you mind sharing it with a friend or two? Thanks!

And thanks for listening. I’m Les Sillars.

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