My computer is like my third arm, or better yet, my second brain.

Before I even hit the snooze button to the alarm in the morning, my arm would reach out to my phone on the bedside table so that I could see how many Facebook notifications I received through the night. Could there be a distinction between information literate and information obsessed? I'll be the first to admit that I am information obsessed and in fact, I deactivated my Facebook account for the next twelve months for a very good cause.

I take the term information literate to mean that a person has the proximal and technical means to become informed about the world. This could still mean newspapers, magazines, and television news, although the accessibility to the personal computer for millions of people might make it a first choice. Instead of reading through my hard copies of Time, U.S. News and World Report, and Redbook, I can visit their web pages and meander through a series of clicks to become up to speed on the news and opinion pieces. I cherish the links to various news sources that I get via electronic mail from my father as I know he has accurate taste in what interests me. I often wonder, what did they do it the old days? Cut out the article from the periodical and set it aside or mail it? Another facet of literacy also means there is a motivation and a knowledge base of what is available and what is the best choice. With experience I know how to avoid the advertisements on the web and stick with the facts.

But sometimes advertisements, and facts for that matter, are not so easy to spot. I would like to assume that everyone has seen this photo by now. When I first saw it, many, many, many years ago, and I read some caption that illustrated the atrocities of this camel spider, and I had believed everything I read. The caption led me to believe that I was looking at one spider the size of that soldier's leg; I believed that the spider was venomous and it could jump several yards in one bound.

Now, I know better. In fact, this turned out to be a real life lesson for me: "Do not believe everything you read on the internet."

Unfortunately, there is more erroneous information on the internet then one person could probably read in a lifetime. One could get really confused if he did not know how to go about weeding through the information that was false. Just look at the franchises such as "Mythbusters" on Discovery Channel and websites such as Snopes.com that are dedicated to debunking false claims and urban legends.

If I was to review some information on my own I would first go with my gut. If something did not seem right, then it very well may not be. To take it to the next step I would cross reference the same subject to see if I could find additional websites or sources to support the information. A good recommendation by Alan November (n.d.), was to run the author's name through a search engine and see what various agencies link back to the author. For example, if the general consensus is that the author is promoting hate speech, then that would be a source to be cautious of.

This task can be extremely daunting these days. In fact, one primary source of information, Wikipedia.org, can be misleading. This online encyclopedia can be a collaboration of everyone and their mother. How can someone tell if an article on this website is real information or not? Luckily, Wikipedia has some helpful guidelines as well. Click here to learn more: How to evaluate a Wikipedia article These guidelines suggest many tools. One thing I had never thought of was to check the age of the article since an older article would have had more visitors, hence,more opportunities to be challenged.