False or incomplete claims spill into people’s daily lives, conversations and even relationships, shaping the way people think and act. At Grosse Pointe South, staff and students find that misinformation has become more than an online problem. It’s harming our culture and integrity, affecting critical thinking and adding to stress.
As one of South’s student counselors, Jennifer Vick has seen how quickly people repeat claims without questioning them. She has begun to notice how it affects not only what students believe, but also how they feel.
“Some of it’s misinformation, some of it is a total lack of information, but people just say things and have no data or information to back it up,” Vick said. “We are shelving critical thinking, it only adds to the division, to the rancor and honestly, to people’s stress and anxiety levels.”
South librarian Courtney Johnson shares those concerns. When conducting her freshman research classes, she tries to equip students with tools to navigate bias.
“I try to stick to news sources outside the United States, like the BBC, to get a different perspective,” Johnson said. “When I see the freshmen for different research classes, I do teach them that they need to be very cognizant of the left and right bias, but even though I teach it doesn’t mean that they’re actually practicing and reflecting on that.”
While staff emphasize media literacy, students like Emilia Koper ’26 feel the impact of misinformation first hand in daily interactions.
“I’ve seen social media misinformation relatively often, most frequently repeated by others in real life who say they got that information from said social media,” Koper said. “It’s easier just to watch a video, or watch someone talk about a snippet of an article and scroll away, then actually closing the social media app and looking at a few more sources.”
For Koper, that cycle doesn’t just make the truth difficult to find, it also creates conflict with people around her.
“Even with people I’m close to, I’ve experienced a degree of conflict due to misinformation,” Koper said. “I’m often a bit paranoid that something I’ve seen or read is incorrect.”
Across South, both professionals like Vick and students agree that the solution to tell real from fake lies in asking more questions and comparing multiple sources.
“We assume that it’s true if it comes from a news source we think is legitimate,” Vick said. “But far too often, we’re not stopping to think and ask: What’s the other side of this? Is there information to support this, or is it just a claim?”
