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THEY are variously known as the Net Generation, Millennials, Generation Y or Digital Natives. But whatever you call this group of young people—roughly, those born between 1980 and 2000—there is a widespread consensus among educators, marketers and policymakers that digital technologies have given rise to a new generation of students, consumers, and citizens who see the world in a different way. Growing up with the internet, it is argued, has transformed their approach to education, work and politics.

But does it really make sense to generalise about a whole generation in this way? Not everyone thinks it does. “This is essentially a wrong-headed argument that assumes that our kids have some special path to the witchcraft of ‘digital awareness’ and that they understand something that we, teachers, don’t—and we have to catch up with them,” says Siva Vaidhyanathan, who teaches media studies at University of Virginia.

Any teenager can choose to join a Facebook group supporting the opposition in Iran or the liberation of Tibet, but such engagement is likely to be shallow. A recent study by the Pew Research Center, an American think-tank, found that internet users aged 18-24 were the least likely of all age groups to e-mail a public official or make an online political donation. But when it came to using the web to share political news or join political causes on social networks, they were far ahead of everyone else. Rather than genuinely being more politically engaged, they may simply wish to broadcast their activism to their peers. As with the idea that digital natives learn and work in new ways, there may be less going on here than meets the eye.

"Who is the author?" is the root question. If you don't find one, turn your skepticism meter to the top of the dial. And use easywhois.com to find out who owns the site if there is no author listed. If the author provides a way to ask questions, communicate, or add comments, turn up the credibility meter and dial back the skepticism. When you identify an author, search on the author's name in order to evaluate what others think of the author - and don't turn off your critical stance when you assess reputation. Who are these other people whose opinions you are trusting? Is the site a .gov or .edu? If so, turn up the credibility a notch. If it helps, envision actual meters and dials in your mind's eye - or a thermometer or speedometer. Take the website's design into account - professional design should not be seen as a certain indicator of accurate content, but visibly amateurish design is sometimes an indicator that the "Institute of Such-and-Such" might be an obsessive loner.

More good questions to use as credibility probes: Does the author provide sources for factual claims, and what happens when you search on the names of the authors of those sources? Have others linked to this page, and if so, who are they (use the search term "link: http://..." and Google shows you every link to a specified page). See if the source has been bookmarked on a social bookmarking service like Delicious or Diigo; although it shouldn't be treated as a completely trustworthy measurement, the number of people who bookmark a source can furnish clues to its credibility. All the mechanics of doing this kind of checking take only a few seconds of clicking, copying and pasting, searching, and judging for yourself. Again, the part that requires the most work is learning to do your own judging.

I use martinlutherking.org as an example with my students today - it's not owned by admirers of the late civil rights leader, but you wouldn't know that at first glance. Another, less sinister but equally sobering teaching story: "The parody site Gatt.org once duped the Center for International Legal Studies into believing it was the Web site of the World Trade Organization.

The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism