An open letter to this year's graduates: We need you (2024)

Dear 2024 graduates,

I know you're probably busy starting your "epic" summer before running off into adulthood, but I was hoping you'd help correct a ship that has seemed to have escaped the hands of us adults and has now run a little off course. It's a pretty big chore, but we probably never gave you enough of those anyway, so here it is.

Now, before I start, I'd like to preface this with...we're still wiser than you. You're smart, but we've still got a lot we can teach you. Like that insurance commercial says, "We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two."

Okay. Having said that, there's this thing....we need you. And yes, like usual, it has to do with technology.

You see, many of us who are old enough to have kids around your age are grounded in reality. It's something we happen to like about ourselves, but the problem is, too much of a good thing can also cause issues.

Most of us were raised without the internet. We didn't have social media, and our "outside" information came once a day to our doorsteps or twice a day to our TV sets. The edgiest thing we could easily watch was MTV. Actually, it was great because our brains were only being fed real information — not perfect or 100% error-free information, but we never had to doubt their basic legitimacy. Like real butter and real sugar, it may not have been good, but at least it was real and we knew what we were dealing with. But this also meant our natural evolution did not include developing a keen ability to detect and repel digital bunk.

That brings us to the problem today. If you've created a Facebook account (either for Marketplace or to keep tabs on what we're posting about you), you know most of us are on there doing our thing. We've come a long way since the simpler days of our childhoods and have adapted well to the ever-changing landscapes of life, but information overload is proving to be a challenge. There is so much coming at us from every direction. From deeply biased cable news channels to Facebook memes to YouTube...and now we have to think about bots? We did not grow up with this mental chaos. So, naturally, not everybody is always able to decipher what is fact from fiction.

Media literacy, the ability to analyze and determine the accuracy and credibility of media, is not an overarching strength of our generation. So when you combine a deluge of information — both true/solid and fake/twisted — it all gets so jumbled that we will sometimes throw our hands up and just pick the news that we want to believe. I mean, there are so many "news" sources now that say conflicting things, and sometimes it feels like everybody is lying. So, in the absence of clarity, of course we're going to pick the one telling us that what we already kind of believe is right. This is a crazy world that we hardly recognize sometimes, so if we can at least feel like we're right about something, we're taking it. It's called "confirmation bias", and it has us deeming news we don't like as "fake" and news we do as "trust-worthy". (We're tired and overwhelmed, and this is just an easy way to do it.)

The problem is, this is also pitting us against each other. As bad actors intentionally pollute our media and turn us against our fellow Americans, our country becomes weaker and more vulnerable to people in this world who actually do want to harm us. "Hey, look!" they say to us, while pointing at our neighbors, and then "bam!"...they sucker punch us while we're busy squinting our eyes at other Americans whose only crime is that they voted for "the other guy". It's happening on small scales, and if we don't smarten up, it very well could happen on a much grander one — one we might not be equipped to deal with.

Now, to you. We need you.

I know some of you are already getting sucked into that same situation. Algorithms ensure you keep seeing like-minded things, and you guys are also having to navigate all this media without much help from us. And now...AI.

I can't even imagine what us older fogies are going to do when AI-generated content is a more regular part of our worlds, but I'm sure you all understand how incredibly dangerous that has the potential to be. If we're not great at spotting bad photo-shopped images or simply doing some Google searches to verify facts now, I cannot fathom us having to identify AI-generated images and videos that are well done. One convincing, well-timed post could have us all slapping on our old Metallica T-shirts, ready for war.

So, it's up to you. I know I mentioned this, but we need you.

I mean, we've got some tech-savvy, brilliant people in our age group who will hopefully help in keeping tech development somewhat responsible, but there will only be so much we can do. This massive responsibility is going to fall largely to you.

I know this letter is taking a serious turn, but you're all grown up now, and life does get serious. You know this — you're watching terrible wars break out overseas. But here's the thing. Most wars start with a spark from bad people, but they usually only ever take hold when the fuel known as propaganda is added and enough good people believe it. People are misinformed, confused, scared, and that makes them ready to fight. It's what they're trying to do to us. Mass communication is the most powerful weapon on earth. Whoever wins the information war, wins. Period. So please, be smarter than "they" think you can be. Like generations before you, you now have a responsibility to stay informed with the truth. Question everything.

When you watch or read something, take notice of the source. Not the platform — the source. TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat — those are only platforms, and there's a mix of good and bad information on all of them. I'm talking about WHO created that video you're watching or WHO wrote that article you're reading. Who are they? Find out. Don't trust random sites and people just because you like what they say. Any yahoo can make a video. Make them earn your trust. Find some credible, centrist news sources — both local and national — and "like" or "follow" them now so that you know you've at least got some legit stuff coming through your feeds. And my gosh, don't rely so heavily on ChatGPT. Sure, it's handy for some things, but AI is only as good as the information it's being fed, and it's being fed by virtually everything on the internet...stuff fallible humans published.

In every second it took you to read this far, there were millions of new pieces of content posted online, and all of the people behind those posts want your attention. You have to be better than us at knowing what is good and what is poison. Because not all poison kills right away, some just slowly build up in your system until you can no longer stand. And you are our newest adults now. We need you standing. We need you to have more clarity than we seem to have at the moment. We need you.

Paula Quam is an editorial director for Forum Communications, focusing on Minnesota news. She grew up in Glyndon, Minnesota, just outside of Fargo.