Critical thinking for democracy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2024 (606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In an era of rapidly changing technology, the ways in which we engage with media and acquire information continually evolves. Being informed about political updates is no longer limited to local radio, newspapers, and television. The emergence of the internet and cellular devices have revolutionized how we become informed of local and global developments.

There are myriad benefits to these technological advancements, including being exposed to pluralistic voices, hearing diverse and contrasting perspectives on contentious topics, and having speedy access to new information. However, despite the benefits of digital media, there are certainly various concerns.

Topical discussion regarding the proliferation of conspiracy theories, disinformation, and fake news are all relevant in our 21st century society. Public distrust has only been exacerbated as a former U.S. president has repeatedly proclaimed free media as “the enemy of the people.”

There is evidence that our electoral processes, the heart of social democracies, are becoming increasingly interfered by adversarial, autocratic governments. Social media audiences are particularly vulnerable to such concerted manipulation efforts and are perhaps at the crux of the disinformation issue.

As social media technologies have become so readily accessible and routinely utilized, we are highly vulnerable to purposeful disinformation by unregulated entities. This is particularly true for younger generations, as reports suggest that youth heavily rely upon social media platforms for their daily news and political updates.

Further, the rise in artificial intelligence and understanding what impact this new technology may have in influencing our consumption of daily news, remains largely unknown. Coupling these developments with the escalating distrust in public institutions and electoral processes raises genuine alarm for the vitality of our social democracies.

Now more than ever, acquiring literacy and critical thinking skills are of paramount importance. Ascertaining truth from fact can be a difficult task for adults, and the challenge is understandably more pronounced for children and youth. Our public schools must continue to prioritze pedagogies that cultivate critical thinking capacities among young people.

The United States education department concluded in a 2017 national review that approximately 130 million Americans read at, or below, a sixth-grade level. While this statistic may be shocking, there are numerous articles since published sharing how low national literacy rates impact the U.S. economy by trillions of dollars annually. Literacy rates in Canada are generally higher, but efforts to improve literacy rates among children and youth are ongoing.

High literacy proficiencies may contribute to a strong economy, but more importantly being able to read, write, and critically engage with information has countless benefits to individuals, groups, and our collective society.

Not only do students need to develop strong literacy rates to be effective in their future employment opportunities, they also deserve a quality education to enhance their humanistic growth and potential. As we learn to read, write, and engage with text we also learn to decipher trustworthy from unreliable. Literacy skills and critical thinking skills are not quite synonymous, but they are strongly correlated with one another.

As such, in the era of “fake news” and concerted efforts to disseminate disinformation, our public schools need to further prioritize pedagogies to foster critical thinking skills among young people. Although we may be unable to prevent the proliferation of disinformation on social media, we may ameliorate these challenges through educational interventions.

Teachers and parents alike should encourage youth to question the credibility of their sources of information, to analyze authors’ levels of education and/or experience related to the topic, and to consider multiple sources before arriving at conclusions.

We should respect perspectives from authority figures, those that study various fields, such as medicine, law, ecology, education, and so forth. Understandably, all humans are subject to fallibility, so we should corroborate experts’ positions with others studying the discipline.

In short, the rise in disinformation is a genuine threat to the social function of our democracy. Recognizing critical thinking skills to be important may be somewhat axiomatic. However, cognizant of growing public distrust with the media, cultivating such skills among youth is timely. We should engage in explicit dialogue with youth over the credibility of internet and social media sources, to critically interrogate texts, and to investigate the strengths and limitations of our public institutions. A critically reflective society is conducive not only to the vitality in our democratic infrastructures, but also to our individual and collective humanistic growth.

Jordan Laidlaw is a public school teacher and a Ph.D. candidate in educational administration at the University of Manitoba.