About Verified- Week 4

Liam Justiniano

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I think Mike Caufield does a great job at compiling the knowledge of how to navigate these online spaces in his book “Verified”. A lot of these tools such as the knowledge block or the three dots are something that we encounter on a daily basis. I haven’t ever stopped to check the credibility of the website or investigate websites through the three dots. I haven’t stopped to really check out the entirety of the knowledge block. It really is sort of grounding the whole internet experience to become less overwhelming. There are tons of tools that are out there for people to use to easily fact check something such as those three dots. You can see why that particular search result came up: whether it’s an ad or not, sponsored, or paid position on Google. 

I was also a big fan of his SIFT Method. It encourages you to take that breath and take a step back from the automated and forced feedback you get from search results by starting with S-Stop.. Google prides themselves on how fast they are able to return results. Many people I know get irritated when it takes longer than 5 seconds for a page to load–I know that I am guilty of that as well.  The SIFT method seems to break that reaction response that we often get from such quick returns and clickbaity headlines. In a time period where your attention is very valuable SIFT encourages you to step back and reclaim and use your attention effectively. It also discourages that sort of spiral like thinking when it comes to researching a topic. Instead of going down into the weeds of something and picking it a part to figure out its reliability, it just has you shift your attention more effectively to the source. Investigating the origins of a work and fanning out your search to find what else people are saying or to see who else is interested in the topic. Lastly it forces you to acknowledge yourself in the mess and pull away from the media and reflect. This I believe ties in with what he has to say about Google Searching and biases as well. 

I’ve enjoyed reading and seeing my typical searches through a different lens. I’ve paused a few times since these readings when I’m Googling something to see if I’m adding any bias to my results to get what I wanted. It’s a weird little practice that I can see being reflected outside of search engines. Seeing and understanding what subconscious biases I am bringing to a conversation or situation. I think that also ties back into what he describes with the 3 contexts, the last one being the self. Seeing and understanding where I’m coming from on a topic and evaluating how much knowledge I have and what I’m hoping to achieve with my actions, are all very grounding concepts that work on the internet but also with rhetoric as a whole I believe.