Chapter 38: Exercises — Building Personal Resilience Against Misinformation

Instructions

These exercises blend self-reflection, applied practice, and conceptual analysis. Many require you to examine your own information habits honestly. The most valuable exercises are those you actually complete with full attention — partial or superficial responses will not produce the behavioral change these exercises are designed to support.

For self-reflection exercises, there are no "correct" answers — only honest and less honest ones. For applied exercises, quality of reasoning and specificity of planning matter more than any particular conclusion you reach.

Part A: Self-Assessment Exercises

Exercise 1: Your Current News Diet Audit

For one full week, keep a log of every piece of news content you consume. For each item, record: - Source (specific publication or account) - Format (social media post, article, podcast, video, etc.) - Topic area - Whether you read beyond the headline - Whether you verified any claims in the content - Whether you shared, liked, or engaged with the content

At the end of the week, analyze your log:

a. What percentage of your consumption was from social media feeds vs. direct publication access? b. How diverse were your sources politically and geographically? c. What percentage of content did you read beyond the headline? d. How many times did you verify a claim before sharing or acting on it? e. Are there topics on which you consumed a disproportionate amount of content? Is this proportional to the actual importance of those topics in the world?

Write a 300-word "news diet diagnosis" based on your audit.

Exercise 2: Epistemic Virtue Self-Assessment

Rate yourself honestly on each of the four epistemic virtues discussed in Section 38.2. Use a scale of 1 (very weak) to 5 (very strong). For each rating, provide a specific example from your recent experience that illustrates your self-assessment.

After completing the table:

a. Which virtue is your strongest? Describe a recent situation in which it served you well. b. Which virtue is your weakest? Describe a recent situation in which its absence had a negative effect on your information processing or behavior. c. Design a specific practice for strengthening your weakest virtue over the next 30 days.

Exercise 3: Emotional Trigger Mapping

Think about the last five pieces of misinformation or highly misleading content you encountered (that you later discovered was misleading). For each:

a. What emotional response did it trigger initially? (Outrage, fear, amusement, pride, disgust, etc.) b. Did the emotional response make you more or less likely to evaluate the content critically? c. Did you share or otherwise act on the content before discovering it was misleading?

After completing this exercise, identify: - What emotional triggers are you most susceptible to? - What content categories (political, health, social) tend to engage your emotional triggers? - What would an effective personal "early warning system" for your specific emotional triggers look like?

Exercise 4: Information Environment Audit

List and categorize every source from which you regularly receive information (at least weekly). For each source, identify:

a. Political/ideological lean (as objectively as possible) b. Your own political/ideological lean c. Whether the source challenges or confirms your existing views d. The format and how much depth it typically provides e. Whether the source has a demonstrated fact-checking record

After completing the audit:

• What percentage of your sources confirm vs. challenge your existing views?
• Are any major political perspectives, geographic regions, or topic areas entirely absent from your regular sources?
• Identify three specific sources you should add to your regular diet and explain why.
• Identify three sources you currently follow that you should reduce or eliminate based on quality concerns.

Part B: Skill-Building Exercises

Exercise 5: 30-Second Lateral Reading Practice

For each of the following sources, conduct a 30-second lateral read (open a new tab, search for the source, read two or three independent results). Record what you find and whether it changes your assessment of the source.

a. TheGatewayPundit.com b. Democracy Now! (democracynow.org) c. Zero Hedge (zerohedge.com) d. Jacobin (jacobinmag.com) e. Natural News (naturalnews.com) f. The Dispatch (thedispatch.com) g. GreatGameIndia.com h. The Conversation (theconversation.com)

For each source, record: - What did your lateral read reveal about the source's credibility, funding, and track record? - Were there any surprises? - Has your assessment of any sources changed based on the lateral read?

Exercise 6: SIFT in Practice

Apply the full SIFT framework to each of the following claims. Document each step of your process.

Claim A: "A new study shows that drinking coffee reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease by 65%."

Claim B: "The U.S. government spent $3 million studying why politicians lie."

Claim C: "Photographs from 1970 show New York City underwater from sea level rise — proof that climate scientists predicted faster change than occurred."

Claim D: "A small town in New Mexico banned the sale of assault weapons and violent crime dropped 47% in one year."

For each claim: - Stop: What is your initial emotional reaction? (Record it honestly.) - Investigate the source: If a source is provided or implied, what does a lateral read reveal? - Find better coverage: What do independent credible sources say? - Trace to original context: Can you find the original source (study, government document, photograph) on which the claim is based? Does the original support the claim as stated?

Exercise 7: Inoculation Practice

The chapter describes inoculation — exposure to weakened misinformation techniques — as more effective than post-hoc correction. Practice identifying three common misinformation techniques by analyzing examples of each:

Technique 1: False equivalence — treating two things as equivalent when they are not (e.g., "One study shows X, another shows Y, so the science is 50-50.")

Technique 2: Anecdote as data — using a single case to generalize (e.g., "I know someone who was fully vaccinated and still got COVID, so vaccines don't work.")

Technique 3: Cherry-picking — selecting supporting evidence while ignoring contradicting evidence.

For each technique: a. Find a real example of this technique being used (from news, social media, or advertising). b. Explain precisely why the technique is misleading. c. Write a brief "inoculation message" explaining the technique in a way that would help someone recognize it next time.

Exercise 8: Implementing the Accuracy Nudge

Based on Pennycook and Rand's research, simply asking yourself "Is this accurate?" before engaging with content improves the quality of your information decisions.

Design and implement a one-week "accuracy nudge" experiment: - Decide on a trigger for your nudge (e.g., any time you are about to share, like, or retweet) - For one week, pause and ask "Is this accurate?" before every such action - Track (a) how many times the nudge triggered, (b) how many times you checked accuracy beyond the nudge, and (c) how many sharing decisions you changed as a result

Write a one-page reflection on the experiment: what did you learn about your own information habits?

Part C: Habit Design Exercises

Exercise 9: Implementation Intention Design

Write implementation intentions for three specific media literacy habits you want to build. For each:

Format: "If [specific situation], then I will [specific behavior]."

Requirements: - The "if" must be a specific, observable situation (not "when I encounter news") - The "then" must be a specific, simple behavior (not "think more carefully") - The intention must be genuinely achievable in under 2 minutes

Example: "If I am about to share a news article from a source I have not used before, then I will spend 45 seconds laterally reading the source before sharing."

After writing your three intentions: a. Identify the environmental change that would support each intention (what would make the "then" behavior easier to perform?) b. Identify who you will share these intentions with for accountability c. Decide how you will track whether you follow through

Exercise 10: Clear's Four Laws Applied

Apply James Clear's four laws of behavior change to one specific media literacy habit you want to build:

Choose your target habit: (e.g., lateral reading before sharing, scheduling news consumption, turning off notifications)

Law 1 — Make it obvious (cue design): What environmental changes will make the cue for this habit visible and unavoidable?

Law 2 — Make it attractive (craving design): What genuine value do you hold that this habit serves? How can you frame the habit so that performing it feels like an expression of that value?

Law 3 — Make it easy (friction reduction): What is the smallest possible version of this habit that still counts? What environmental change would reduce the effort of performing the habit to near zero?

Law 4 — Make it satisfying (reward design): What tangible reward will you give yourself for performing the habit? How will you track your streak?

Write a one-page habit design document using this framework.

Exercise 11: Identity Statement Development

Write three identity statements about yourself as an information consumer. Each should: - Be in the present tense ("I am..." not "I want to be...") - Describe a character trait rather than a behavior - Be genuinely aspirational but not wildly implausible

Examples: "I am someone who invests in understanding issues rather than reacting to them." "I am someone who doesn't share things I haven't verified." "I am someone who actively seeks out the best version of views I disagree with."

After writing your three statements: a. For each statement, identify one action in the next 24 hours that would be consistent with that identity. b. For each statement, identify the most common situation in which you currently act inconsistently with that identity. c. Design a specific response to that inconsistency situation based on the identity you are building.

Part D: Communication and Social Exercises

Exercise 12: Motivational Interviewing Role-Play

Find a partner. One person plays the role of someone who believes a common piece of health misinformation (e.g., that a particular supplement cures cancer, that a common vaccine causes autism, that a specific diet reverses diabetes). The other plays a person using motivational interviewing techniques.

The MI player should: - Express empathy for the emotional experience behind the belief - Ask open-ended questions rather than making arguments - Develop discrepancy between the belief and the person's stated values - Roll with resistance without arguing back - Support the person's ability to evaluate information themselves

After 10 minutes, switch roles. Debrief together: - What felt most unnatural about the MI approach? - What seemed most effective? - What would you do differently in a real conversation?

Exercise 13: The Correction Challenge

A close friend shares on social media a piece of content you know to be false. The content claims that a specific local politician accepted a bribe — a claim you have verified is based on a fabricated document. Your friend has shared it with a comment expressing outrage.

Write out the exact text of: a. A public response (visible to all your friend's followers) b. A private direct message to your friend c. No response (with an explanation of why you chose not to respond)

For each option, identify: - The likely effects on your friend's belief - The likely effects on your social relationship - The likely effects on the epistemic commons (what happens to the false information?) - Which option you would actually choose, and why

Exercise 14: Designing a Conversation About Vaccine Hesitancy

You are at a family dinner. A family member says: "I'm not going to get the booster. These companies just want our money and I don't trust what's in these vaccines. My body, my choice."

a. What is the factual claim (or claims) being made? Which are verifiable? b. What is the emotional/identity content of the statement? What values is the speaker expressing? c. Using MI principles, write three questions you could ask to open a productive conversation. d. Write one thing you should NOT say, and explain why. e. What would a realistic successful outcome of this conversation look like? (It is probably not "your family member immediately gets the booster.")

Exercise 15: Community Epistemic Responsibility Reflection

The chapter describes the "epistemic commons" as a shared resource that is degraded by misinformation propagation.

a. Identify a specific piece of misinformation you have shared in the past (on social media, in conversation, in a group chat) that turned out to be false. (Everyone has done this — honesty is important here.) b. How many people did you potentially expose to the false claim? c. Did you post a correction when you discovered the error? If not, why not? d. Write a brief analysis of your sharing decision at the time: what information did you have? what was your emotional state? what would have made you more likely to verify before sharing?

Part E: Applied Analysis Exercises

Exercise 16: Source Quality Rubric

Develop a personal source quality rubric — a set of criteria you will use to evaluate news sources. Your rubric should: - Include 5-8 criteria - Be applicable to sources across the political spectrum - Be practical enough to apply in under 5 minutes per source - Include a scoring system

Apply your rubric to five sources you currently use regularly. What does the rubric reveal?

Exercise 17: Platform Design Critique

Identify three specific features of the social media platform you use most frequently that make good information hygiene harder. For each:

a. Describe the feature and how it affects information processing or sharing behavior b. Propose a specific design change that would improve information quality without eliminating the feature's social value c. Identify what platform incentives make your proposed change unlikely to be adopted voluntarily

Exercise 18: Designing a Classroom Media Literacy Habit

You are a middle school teacher designing a 5-minute daily media literacy practice for your 7th grade students. Design a routine that: - Takes no more than 5 minutes - Can be done at the start of class every day - Does not require special technology beyond a standard classroom setup - Builds one specific media literacy habit over time - Is engaging for 12-13 year olds

Describe the routine, the habit it builds, and how you would measure whether students are developing the habit.

Exercise 19: Long-Term Habit Formation Plan

Using the concepts from Section 38.10, design a 90-day media literacy habit formation plan. Your plan should:

• Target exactly three specific media literacy habits (more than three is usually too many to build simultaneously)
• For each habit, specify:
• The exact implementation intention (if-then plan)
• The cue (specific observable trigger)
• The routine (specific, simple behavior)
• The reward (specific, immediate, tangible)
• The environmental change that will support the habit
• The accountability mechanism

Present your plan in a format you would actually use (a document, a habit tracker template, a phone note, etc.).

Exercise 20: The Information Snacking vs. Deep Reading Experiment

For two weeks, alternate: - Week 1: Your normal information diet, carefully logged - Week 2: Replace 30 minutes of social media news consumption with 30 minutes of reading one long-form article or essay per day. Log this as well.

At the end of each week, assess: a. Your subjective sense of how informed you feel b. Your ability to explain in depth the most important issues you encountered c. Your emotional state after news consumption (using a simple 1-5 anxiety scale) d. How many claims you felt confident enough to act on or share

Write a 200-word comparison of the two weeks.

Exercise 21: Designing Your Personal SIFT Trigger List

SIFT is most effective when it becomes automatic in response to specific trigger conditions. Personalize the SIFT framework by designing a trigger list — a list of specific situations in which you commit to running the SIFT check automatically.

Design your trigger list to include: - At least 5 specific situations (e.g., "any health claim that would change my behavior," "any claim about election integrity") - The specific SIFT steps you will emphasize for each trigger type (some situations need more emphasis on "Stop," others on "Find better coverage") - A default time limit for each SIFT check

Exercise 22: Stress-Testing Your Information Diet

A known limitation of echo chambers is that people in them do not know what they are missing. Test your information diet by:

a. Identifying the three most significant news stories from the past week as reported in your regular sources. b. Finding coverage of the same three stories in three sources you do not normally read. c. Identifying specific information present in the alternative sources that was absent from or differently framed in your regular sources.

Write a brief analysis of what the comparison reveals about your information diet and what you might be missing.

Exercise 23: Backfire Effect Nuance Analysis

The chapter describes the backfire effect as "less robust than originally reported." Find and read at least two academic papers or credible summaries of the research:

a. Nyhan and Reifler's original 2010 study b. A later replication study that failed to replicate the backfire effect (e.g., Wood and Porter, 2019)

Write a 300-word analysis of: - What the original study claimed - What subsequent research found - What the current consensus understanding is - What the nuances of this research mean for how you should approach correcting misinformation in conversations

Exercise 24: Personal Resilience Assessment

Rate yourself on a 1-10 scale for each of the following components of personal resilience. Then write one specific, achievable action for improving each component over the next 30 days.

Exercise 25: The Synthesis Reflection

Write a 500-word personal essay responding to the following prompt:

"Personal resilience against misinformation is a worthy goal, but structural solutions — platform regulation, algorithmic accountability, media literacy education in schools — are ultimately far more important. Individual habit-change is like recycling while companies dump waste by the barrel: it makes us feel good without solving the actual problem."

Your essay should: - Engage with the strongest version of this critique - Draw on specific concepts from this chapter and Chapter 37 - Arrive at a considered position of your own on the relationship between individual and structural responses to misinformation - Acknowledge the limits of your own position