After my sophomore year of college, I interned with USA Today Opinion as a fact-checker. The work was tedious, albeit satisfying; I spent hours poring over news sites, scanning through scientific and demographic studies, and running plagiarism checkers to ensure that every claim in the opinion column was backed by legitimate and trustworthy sources. I even spent 15 minutes on the phone with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ press team while they walked me through an Excel document, thousands of columns long, to find a statistic that Sanders wished to cite in an op-ed.

This experience gave me a new appreciation for the endless media at our fingertips. There is a landslide of readily available sources and counterarguments for just about every opinion presented online.

But the experience also forced me to regard every online source with a critical, unbiased eye.

I didn’t always agree with the opinion columns I edited, but it was my job to ensure that the arguments were well-researched even if I disagreed with a premise. I came across misleading language and missing evidence from voices on both sides of the political aisle, yet I couldn’t deny that my least favorite news sources sometimes presented the most credible cases.

As a result, I’ve trained myself to look at every voice online – whether it aligns with my own values or not – with skepticism. When I read the news, I try to follow every hyperlink to verify claims for myself. I don’t accept arguments at face value unless I already consider myself sufficiently educated on the topic.

My internship taught me that this level of critique is the bare minimum. Unfortunately, in my experience at a large public university, this effort is not the norm. It isn’t even expected.

Gen-Zers like myself are not known for keeping up with the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Instead, many of my peers stay on top of the news via social media, particularly Instagram. Heck, I find out about many recent events from viewing my friends’ Instagram stories, where they share posts that resonate with them and reflect their political opinions. Yet these same posts often make blanket claims without citing any sources.

Social media is a powerful and worthy tool for spreading news. However, the bite-sized versions of breaking news that make their way onto Instagram posts rarely show the full story. Short-form content, which restricts media soundbites to a few minutes, makes it impossible to represent every side of an argument. An Instagram post doesn’t have the space to develop nuance; most of the time, it offers only black and white.

The now-ubiquitous online AI news summaries are perhaps even worse, often presenting watered-down explanations as substitutes for the in-depth arguments and logic depicted in their source material. Worse still, AI is notoriously bad at citing sources, but is often relied upon as an “unbiased” source. I’d take human bias over AI any day.

Nonetheless, I’ve seen others my age place their trust in Instagram posts and AI summaries over primary sources. Very few of my friends ever fact-check the authorities that they believe are gospel.

Media literacy is the practice of fact-checking and analyzing sources in the media while remaining aware of the creator’s – and your own – bias. Unfortunately, this habit seems to be all but absent from Gen Z circles.

So, how can we become media literate?

First, we must accept that even our most beloved news sources are biased. And that is fine! We’re all human, so of course we’re biased. All we can do is remain aware of what our favorite sites have to lose or gain by how they present the news. Don’t be afraid to be critical of what even your favorite commentators say.

Second, follow hyperlinks. I can’t count the number of times that 15 seconds of looking at the source material has shown me that quotes are being taken out of context (looking at you, BuzzFeed). Charlie Kirk is the latest victim of this partiality, but it is nothing new.

Lastly, research before you repost. Don’t let the emotional clickbait that headlines rely upon force you into such righteous anger that you can’t be bothered to consider their source or motive.

The internet is a tool. We should use it to increase our own knowledge and understanding without giving it undue power over what we believe. Media literacy is the first step toward gaining mastery over the negativity and prejudices that are so present amid truth and reason online.

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