Is this creature capable of exposing shocking internet illiteracy?

Donald Leu, a researcher from the University of Connecticut, conducted a U.S. Department of Education-funded study of internet literacy among so-called “digital natives,” fabricating the tree octopus to test students’ ability to evaluate information they find on the internet.

Researchers asked students to find out information about the endangered Pacific Northwest tree octopus. Students had no problem locating a Web site dedicated to the cause, http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ “but insisted on the existence of the made-up story, even after researchers explained the information on the website was completely fabricated,” according to a press release.

(Author’s note: You gotta check out this Web site, you can actually buy posters and T-shirts through Cafe Press.)

Most students “simply have very little in the way of critical evaluation skills,” Leu said. “They may tell you they don’t believe everything they read on the Internet, but they do.”

The study also found that students shunned search engines in favor of typing what they think is the right site directly into the address bar, such as Georgewashington.com. When they did use a search engine, they skipped right over legitimate pages “because it didn’t look like what they had in mind,” Leu said.

“That’s what children do with their rock stars and their other cultural stars. They are accustomed to typing in the name and adding ‘.com.’ That often doesn’t work for real academic research,” Leu said.

Leu’s conclusions are serious. As the internet becomes the primary tool for research, we are failing to teach kids how to critically analyze information they find there.

But darn it, that tree octopus thing is funny. I’m not laughing. Really. I’m not.