To think people have lost their power of critical thought

[TheClaws]

I’ve noticed a tendency of people across social media to respond to posts without any critical thought or analysis. Eg. Someone tweets ‘There was no quid pro quo: the sham is over.’ The replies to this tweet are primarily ‘AGREE!’ ‘We need to make arrests’ etc. DISCLAIMER: this is just an example. Please don’t jump on this content. If you do, you’re somewhat proving that point.

Regardless of political affiliations, this reluctance to think frightens me. I see over a range of subjects, not just politics - though in the political arena, it is dangerous, as we run the risk of being used by others. (By this I mean misleading social media posts could be made and commented upon as above by unwitting people.)

My point is this: before you comment on something, research it, even just a little bit. Use more than one source. Learn what sources are trustworthy and what are not credible. This process doesn’t take much time and soon becomes second nature.

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude
It’s not just social media memes. Politicians are exploiting this to the full, Trump being the best example. Short hyperbolic comments fired out, no depth or explanation, then move on.

It’s hard to do depth in 280 characters. The media, in turn, base stories on tweets and how the public (using three or four tweets against it as examples) are “outraged”, comments get left, articles get shared and the trenches go up.

I used to think Idiocracy was a somewhat amusing but highly exaggerated film when I watched it a couple of years after release. It seems more scary and less exaggerated now, a decade later.

This is also somewhat related to what resulted in cancel the cheque, is it not? People like to think they’re important and innovative, especially anonymously where they don’t really have to prove they are.

It’s worth remembering this. In the US, the Republican Party sends a list of talking points to higher profile Right-wing Twitter pundits. In turn, they orchestrate a campaign around these talking points.

That’s how these cycles occur. They are orchestrated for you. They are propaganda, from all sides of the spectrum, and I just want everyone to be aware you are being manipulated. Before you like something, look it up.

I loved A Level History but disliked the Source work lesson at the time and found it boring and quite repetitive. However, now I’m a grown up and can look back, it was by far and above one of the most useful lessons of the entire curriculum. The skills those lessons gave me to analyse and question the origins and agenda of all those sources carry with me as an adult and I can apply them to any information I am presented with.
I am a huge advocate for the skills History, as a stand-alone subject, offers and actively encourage my DC to explore more than what they are presented with.

Part of the key is to understand, why people who hold a different view to you think the way they do. For instance a person upthread thinks no one
would vote for Boris if they were aware of a list of his misdemeanours, yet a lot of people clearly will vote for him knowing his past history.

History graduate too here , Malteser

At the risk of sounding like I am 100 years old, I think that anyone who uses social media for personal purposes has lost the power of critical thought. I cannot fathom why people publicise their lives. Even if you just send photographs to your family, FB or WhatsApp have the right to do whatever they wish with the images, which by sending them using their apps, you have given them the right to do.

People used to have private lives.

A lot of people have never had the capacity for critical thought. It isn’t taught in schools though, and doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people, and that’s why.

People being happy to regurgitate slogans and soundbites is nothing new, though it appears to be more common these days.

I worked in a seaside hotel back in the 80s. As a naïve idealist I was horrified to discover that most of the staff treated whatever the Sun said as gospel, even when headlines one day contradicted those of the next.

AIt seemed terrible to me that my vote, so carefully researched, would be cancelled out by that of someone going by the Sun's latest headline. It took someone gently explaining that although democracy has its flaws it's still not as bad as any other forms of government to reconcile me.

I wish schools could put more emphasis on critical thinking skills. I was privately educated and during the A level years we had debates and discussions explicitly a designed to improve our critical thinking. It was very stimulating.

I wish all school students had the same opportunity. It would have the power to radically alter politics. That's probably why it's not being offered.

Basic comprehension ability is lacking, too. You can see it here. Someone will post with a question or dilemma and if it's at all multi-faceted or complex, a number of people will simply comment on what they think they've read.

Idiocracy was a scary film when it was made and not purely because of the quality of film making Then again I was teaching in some "interesting" areas, and seeing the standard (or lack of) of joined up/ critical thinking from so many teenagers in the late stages of their education and realising that this was about the extent of their intellectual development as adulthood approached was quite frightening. Some would go on to mature and do better in the real world... many wouldn't.

Since the creation of league tables to quantify education as a political football, "standards" have "risen" by spoon-feeding and teaching to the test. The freedom to be creative and to make mistakes has been squeezed out, and that hits critical thinking. There are a lot of people with inflated qualifications that mean only that they temporalily held sufficient knowlege to pass the exam, not holding the long term knowledge to link ideas and connect them.

Sensible, intelligent, critical thinkers with broad ideas know better than to argue with stupid soundbites and comments on social media. There may be professional consequences to that kind of media presence. So stupid gravitates to stupid in polarised echo chambers and feels validated. The amount of "sad face" stories where someone publicises their initial stupidity never ceases to amaze me.

I'd like to vainly credit myself as being averagely above average. I'm no brain of Britain, but I am intelligent enough to recognise my blind spots and limitations, that the world is more than fifty shades of grey, and that you can't believe every soundbite and meme you see. In a way it is hard to access clear, reliable information if you are not a specialist and just in search of general information.

This decade has had very unpleasant undertones that have been brought up to the surface by issues such as Brexit. Too many people were complacent about large swathes of the public's political and social leanings, and that's come out in to the open in recent years.

Political reform would help. FPTP hasn't worked effectively since 2010. Maybe social media influences will peak and ebb as people reach saturation. Surely there must be a limit to how much outrage you can take on Twitter. Who knows...

Like a pp, I was taught to analyse evidence critically as part of GCSE and A Level history (1980s) - a skill which was later of great use when I took my degree. It was one of the most interesting and liberating parts of history at school - the freedom to explain why a piece of evidence might not be reliable, and to disregard all or part of it.

It's possible now to read the same piece of news from multiple different sources online, which you'd think might aid critical thinking in a sort of 'spot the difference' way.

If it's no longer being taught as a 'side effect' of other subjects in schools, it would be a good idea to teach critical thinking as a standalone subject - I'd have thought it would be very topical and interesting for young people, if it was taught was with reference to current events.

There was a letter in the Times recently, from a student, defending the No-Platforming of speakers by Universities. Their argument was that they didn't need to hear what these people were saying, because they could find out whatever they wanted to know from social media.

My jaw dropped. It beggars belief that someone who is supposed to be undertaking academic studies didn't know that social media is not the best place to find the full facts, or that it is easy to cherry pick inflammatory bits from what someone says, and misrepresent their actual views - or that the best way to find out what someone actually thinks is to listen to them in person (or to read what they have said in full, not on SM).

I'm very new to Mumsnet but am really shocked at the lack of critical thinking here, that is always demonstrated with vulgar, attacking comments, it seems. I'm genuinely appalled and shocked. What is wrong with people?

From what I've seen here, people are outraged by something. They don't want it to be true, even though it may be, and they will squirm and attack until the cows come home to shut their eyes to some basic truths. It's really quite fascinating to watch.

Someone up thread was horrified at a relative's criticism of the girl associated with Prince Andrew , I was going to reply that her utter dismissal of the relative is exactly part of the problem, she should engage to put her point over, but I didn't have all day.
I had to explain to my DS, with difficulty, why an elderly relative had similar views (not to justify but to explain).
I am old enough and have seen enough changes in society to have some sympathy for out dated views.
And is today's society overall better? The serious anxiety and mental health issues almost cancels out much of the improvement in human rights

@RiftGibbon

It means it's been opened, doesn't mean it's been read necessarily. Someone may have a chance to glance at it, think 'I'll read that later' or read it and not have a chance to reply.

The saying ‘too much information, too little knowledge’ springs to mind.

My brother has a t-shirt which reads Think while it’s still legal.

Mainstream journalism is almost exclusively biased, thereby influencing and even shaping people’s thoughts for them, not with facts but with aggressive sound bites.
We have to ‘pick a team’. We are divided and being systematically and collectively conquered into a mental permafrost, where our thoughts are not our own and research doesn’t even come into it. We are a society divided into influencers and the influenced. Who wants to research and actually read about the history of Balkanization and the long-term impact this unstable region has had on its civilians (for example) when we can go in Mumsnet?
People have time to do some research. They choose not to.

People pick a side. We’re keyboard warriors armed with information and the opinions of others. No fact checking necessary. And if you don’t agree with someone’s point of view, this, to them, must mean you’re the opposition, which is why people are constantly, seemingly offended and defensive and ready for a bun fight.

People don’t know what to make of the unbiased observer who can see both sides clearly. We meet so few like this. And it’s the person who can argue a case for both sides who is the intellectual, the thinker. But instead, the thinker tends to offend. So people troll the thinker.
Thinkers keep shit to themselves.

This is why we NEED libraries and librarians. People need to be taught information literacy.
Keep in mind the CRAAP test
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRAAP_test

I find it worrying tbh, but the death of conversation has a lot to do with it.
It's rare to find anyone, other than older people, without their head in their phone, or earphones.
People are spoon fed everything now and most incapable of individual thoughts, let alone critical thinking.

As interesting as this thread is (thanks OP), there’s also a risk of creating the same kind of us vs them in this very discussion. It can lapse into “us” patting ourselves on the back for being able to think critically (and not using social media apparently?) when compared to the unwashed, selfie-taking masses. It’s not that simple.

YANBU. And it’s exacerbated by the fact that due to the internet, people think they are better informed than ever before. Yet few ever consider the source of the information or read beyond the headline / first paragraph. I see lies repeated as fact so often it’s deeply disturbing.

@astridfarmsworth

But if some people are capable of, or exhibit critical thinking, and others aren't or don't, then there is naturally an "us" and "them". So what's the problem in risking something that is a natural outcome?

I struggle with this on a daily basis in my work situation.
Seemingly intelligent, capable and senior individuals talking a lot about a specific topic, using big words while also being super confident in their delivery, but say absolutely nothing of value.

Then brown nosers sit there, say how valuable that monologue (of nothingness) was and then proceed to talk with more big words, repeat the same crap like the previous person, using different language while everyone else just agrees.

Result: no progress, no value, just a lot of egos stroked!

We should be thinking critically about the value is in what we have to say, and try to keep it as succinct and to point as possible. Otherwise, say nothing. Is it down to today's social norms that hoards of people are getting away with this, getting promoted and achieving very little?

I can't fathom a world where we just regurgitate someone else's ideas/theories/gossip in new and innovative ways.
It happens in social circles also, it puts me off socialising! I'm bored stiff by bad meaningless conversation.

@bubblesforlife

Why don't you speak up with a more convincing argument then?