June 15 is World Youth Skills Day. The 2025 theme is: Youth empowerment through AI and digital skills. The goal of this year’s theme is to prepare students with future-ready skills to help navigate the digital climate. With the emergence of AI in everyday life, work and school, having proper digital skills will help students navigate the new digital climate and become future-ready. For the 10th anniversary of World Youth Skills Day, we want to encourage students to be responsible digital visitors or residents.
A digital visitor is someone who only “visits” the web. They use the internet to finish a specific task. A digital resident is someone who “lives” on the web. They use the internet as a way to socialize and share their life. Having the proper digital skills will allow students to use technology responsibly.
While navigating the internet, it’s important to be good at evaluating media messages. This means you can dissect what is being said and understand the truth. Media messages can be hard to nail down. Some are based on fact and aim to give you information. Some are based on fiction and aim to get you to click on a link. This is called “clickbait”. The goal here is to get you to visit a webpage.
The internet is full of messages. It can be hard to know what is the truth. You will need to come to your own conclusions about these messages. You will need to analyze and interpret the information being presented. Media messages can be separated into 5 parts:
1. Sender: Who is sending the message? Can you trust this person?
2. Message: What is the message? Does it make sense? Does it give both sides?
3. Medium: How am I getting this message? Is this format trustworthy?
4. Receiver: Who is the message meant for? How might other people interpret it?
5. Context: What is the meaning behind the message? Does the sender have a motive?
Find a media message online. Search a topic you’re interested in. Look at top news articles for the day. Scroll through your social media feed. Choose the first article that interests you. Then, evaluate this article using the 5 questions above. Would you recommend this article to others? Why or why not?
Answer: Answers will vary, but should evaluate the media message using the 5 questions.
Click here to download a printable version of this activity from our Applying Life Skills - Your Personal Relationships full ready-made lesson plan.
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