Fact Versus Fiction On The Internet

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How many of you use the internet as a means of doing research? How many delve deep into topics looking for answers to questions that have plagued you? How many of you, convinced that you found a trustworthy site, absorbed everything that had to be said on that site, only to find out later that it's all a lie? I have found that the internet does more to pass mis-information than it does to provide a savehaven for people who genuinely want to utilize the internet as a source for doing research on any topic. Now, I am not suggesting that the internet has no trustworthy sites, but considering the immense amounts of junk email and fraudulent websites that are out there, how much misinformation are we picking up and passing along to others? Today at my office, one of my co-workers forwarded me an email that contained a bunch of controversal information about Barack Obama. After reading it, I visited a website that debunks internet rumors. The site "www.snopes.com" stated that the email, which was replicated on "Snopes" word for word, was completely false. Yet, as easy as it was for me to debunk this email, my co-worker, who is an extremely intelligent individual, read it as fact and has now developed a jaded view of this presidential candidate. This was very frustrating to me and made me really start thinking about how much internet "garbage" is out there. Is the internet trustworthy? Do we simply need to be selective about our web browsing choices? Is there any way to avoid landing on junk sites?? I really wonder...