Not so much anymore. Technology has gotten advanced enough that pictures and videos can be dummied up to appear to show something that isn’t accurate. AI tools can replicate voices to a high degree of accuracy. In some cases, “deep fakes” look and sound awfully real.

Then there’s social media. The good news is these tools are available to all of us. The bad news is anyone and everyone can be an expert—creating attractive graphics and charts, and sometimes misinterpreting or misconstruing data.

Add in foreign agents, like Russia, China, or Iran, who are supposedly pouring their own misinformation into our daily feeds, and you have, as the British would say, a bloody mess.

How do you figure out what’s for real amidst all of this?

This is where critical thinking skills are, well, critical:

• We have to consider the source, what their motivation might be, and how trustworthy they are.
• Are multiple sources across multiple media channels reporting similar things? Or, do those sources report a story so differently we don’t even recognize it from one telling to the next?
• Do people claiming moral high ground rely on accurate historical data—or does it appear they’re making it up and reworking the past as they go?
• Do supposedly data-driven reports make sense? For example, it’s not possible that casualty numbers in a war zone are identical day after day—wars just don’t work that way.

We may never be able to go back to the good ole days when seeing something always meant it was real. But, if we try, we might just be able to see a more comprehensive picture of reality than the latest Tweet or TikTok video leads you to believe.