Information quality goes directly to the heart of what it means to have a free society. Unfortunately, not all Digital Natives see it this way. In conversations with Digital Natives about information quality, questions like “So what” and “Who cares?” are common refrains. The majority of the population born digital doesn’t perceive quality of information as an important issue, it seems.

Palfrey and Gasser, 161

Children who spend more time online—Digital Natives—are more likely to be better equipped to make judgments about information quality. Studies show that children who have the most extensive access to the Internet are more likely than their less experienced peers to take a skeptical view of the kinds of information they draw from Web-based sources like Wikipedia. A possible way to explain this phenomenon is that children with unrestricted access have the time to experience knowledge production as a collaborative experience, while young people who access the internet, for instance, through computers in the library need to get the information very quickly and thus don’t have time to evaluate their sources carefully.

-Palfrey and Gasser, 166

There is no generalizable, abstract answer to the question of what information quality is. When speaking about information quality, we need to ask: “Quality” viewed from what perspective and in what context?

-Palfrey and Gasser, 165