We've all heard of or know someone who's been sucked down an internet rabbit hole of misinformation or conspiracy theories, never to return to reality.
But how do we make sure it's not children being lured down these paths of falsehoods and fake news?
Child psychologist Dr Emma Woodward tells Jesse Mulligan there are a number of ways to protect children from misinformation, as well as developing a safe space for them to come to you when they see something disturbing on the web.
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One of Woodward's recommended methods doesn't involve shielding children from the internet altogether.
“Tech and the internet are now an integral part of every life," she says. "I just think for parents nowadays raising children in the digital world we have to acquire the right skills to be able to help our kids navigate the potential benefits and threats of having the internet.
“The big danger online is it isn’t a big entertainment centre and I think kids use it as that. They go on Youtube videos and it’s a way to pass the time. And actually, the internet is just a massive information highway with lots of unchecked information."
She says the best approach is to allow kids to understand that not everything on the internet is credible or positive and that this can be discerned by them.
“I think the biggest thing we need to do because we can’t monitor everything they do on their devices all the time, is teach them skills in the first place so they can keep themselves safe on the internet.
“One of the big things we can do is teach them critical thinking skills. What is this information saying, what is it making me feel, what do I know about this already and where’s the source for this, is it credible?”
She says these skills can’t be taught early in schools, as embedding this habit allows children to protect themselves against corporate control, as well as other threats to their wellbeing.
“The internet is not only full of information from people but algorithms too and those algorithms are trying to direct and control our behaviour to make us do things the algorithms want us to do, because it’s been programmed like that.
“The thing that we can help children and adolescents understand is how the internet works so that they can be prepared to use it well. We can’t block them from using the internet and actually as a mum of four, all 11 and under, a couple of those have already seen some dodgy stuff online, it’s about having good open dialogue with your kids about when that does happen, what they can do to manage their feelings about that, making sure that you’re not judgemental, and being open, neutral and curious with them around what they’re seeing, and what this makes them think and feel.”
She uses an example of when her son saw something disturbing when he’d curiously followed the link on a Youtube video. A good conversation around this has to involve a value-neutral position, so the child feels they can come to talk about it in the first instance.
“It took him a while to come to me but I noticed something was wrong and it was like ‘okay, okay, what did you see, what do you know and how did it make you feel," she says. "Even though I’d had good, open conversations about this sort of thing, he felt ashamed by what he’d seen and thought he’d done something wrong. So, having, beyond the conversation, safe connected trusting relationships they will it’s ok to come to you with stuff they think they might be judged for.”
She says it's important to tell children they will at some stage see something online that doesn’t make them feel good when that when this happens they need to tell you so it can be talked through.
Pornography is one of the biggest issues children will stumble into on the web.
“Lots of children and young people their first introduction to sexual relationships comes from online pornography and not necessarily because they’re searching it out. Kids research stuff on the computer and if you’ve had an open conversation with them about sex and they go to the computer and type in sex education in Google, I’ll leave it to your imagination what might come up next,” she says.
Conspiracy theories pose more of a risk to older children's mental health.
She says most small kids take much of their cultural influences from their family of origin, but as they get older it’s natural for them to explore meaning and form their own opinions.
If they’ve developed good critical thinking skills by that point online conspiracy theories shouldn’t pose a problem, she says.
“If you are concerned your child has developed some beliefs from stuff that they’ve seen on the internet and shared around their peer group or whatever, the best thing you can do again is be open, neutral and curious because our brains like you know what we know and think we’re right.
"So if we have an opinion as a parent, especially for an adolescent, if you say ‘that’s wrong’, what you’re doing is putting into a position known as cognitive dissonance, which is a painful position to be in an we’ll do everything we can to get out of that. So, what we could so is make them go and seek more information to make them feel safe again and push them further down the rabbit hole.
“So we just need to be aware that they may see stuff that contradicts our family values or beliefs, or political beliefs and that is developmentally appropriate in some respects.”
However, coaching them through that may be a necessity, she adds.
