Earlier this week, the Internet was quivering with a “discovered” news story about Apple’s new proprietary screw that would make it difficult for anyone without a special tool to pry open the case of a product. So what’s the problem?  The story didn’t have even a shred of truth. A company in Sweden merely posted an image as bait and watched with amusement as the reporters, pundits and fans created a writhing mass of information sharing.

The rush to be first to report isn’t unique to the Internet. Neither is error created through failure to adequately and correctly confirm through sources. Recall the famous Woodward and Bernstein gaffe about Haldeman and GOP re-election funds. Both examples however, also illustrate the fascinating pattern-matching abilities we have. The account of being duped by the purported Apple screw image in ReadWrite Web shows how easily we filter information based on the assumptions that we already have. That is what the Internet makes so incredibly simple for everyone – surrounding us with so much that our pattern-matching remains on high alert for those aha! moments when what we think we know is confirmed.

Teaching students the difference between peer-reviewed and popular information simply isn’t enough. While many tout the value of information literacy, and it is a path to apprehending this world, much of the focus is on examining the characteristics of the information as a way to determine its authority. But perhaps just as important is focusing on cognitive self awareness and the patterned assumptions that instantly make some bit of information appear a bit brighter, a bit more interesting in the turbulent sea of data in which we swim.