"If it's on the Internet, it's not necessarily true. But if you read it in a book, then you know it has to be true because books don't lie."
There was another woman with us, who looked at me and rolled her eyes in response to the naivety of the girl. So this got me thinking...
In general, people tend to believe things they read in print. If they are educated people, they check the source before deciding if the information is valid or not. But with the Internet now being the first place most people get their "facts", how much can we believe when we don't always know the source?
The innocent girl who made that remark has certainly been misled since not all books publish the truth, or because the truth is sometimes relative. However, I understand her thinking. Since all books identify their publisher and author, books have credibility. The Internet, on the other hand, holds information by both identifiable and unidentifiable sources. Anyone in the world (literally) can post information and present it as fact. I believe that this is what the girl was trying to say.
As students, it is your responsibility to identify the sources of your research when you write a paper, but if you are relying only on the Internet, this can be a big challenge. And if you are trying to read the news online, you have so many sources to go to. This, too, can be frustrating as you try to decide whose information to believe.
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