Paste your text in hereIt is a sad picture to visualize a world populated by brilliant individuals with great visual intelligence, who can multitask very well, and get high scores of IQ tests but uncappable of developing original ideas, reflective thoughts and understanding. Extraordinary thinkers that have evaluated and reevaluated the world way of thinking, as Voltaire, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, brought out great perceptions and discernments. The world has always appreciated the talent to think beyond the average. ("are We Losing our ability to think critically?") Nowadays, in the 21st century, the time of computers, video games, and the Internet, there is an increasing doubt about how digital media is influencing critical thinking and whether it advances the society. How vital is critical thinking? Critical thinking is a cornerstone of a strong democracy and the explanation of why the world has continued to progressively evolve scientifically. Critical thinking is the objective consideration and evaluation of a concern in order to form a conclusion. Now, more than ever it seems like as critical thinking skills are decreasing. In the book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Dr. Richard Arum surveyed a large range of colleges and universities, and discovered that forty-five percent of students had no meaningful improvement of their critical thinking skills, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, and even after four years, 36 percent had no meaningful insights in so called’ higher order’ thinking skills. ("The lost art of critical thinking.") While there’s little dispute that computer technology perfects, and enriches the human mind, there are growing debates that the same technology is influencing the way people handle complicated situations and challenges, causing difficulties to think. ‘Exposure to technology fundamentally changes the way people think,’ says Greenfield, (Technology and informal education: What is taught, what is learned, Science, ) who examined more than 50 studies on learning and technology, research on multitasking and the use of computers, the Internet, and video games. Critical thinking, real intelligence of integration of facts, context, and meaning that incorporate far more than precise responding is compromised by the digital media that instructs a brain to yield the correct responses to a given input, and answer factual questions with factual answers.
Thinking is a wonderful process used every moment by people to make sense of their life and their world. Effective thinking empowers people to make successful decisions, to reach goals that give their life meaning and fulfillment, and to resolve the problems they are constantly challenged with. Critical thinking is a fundamental activity for living with purpose. To use to think is an effective process, and by becoming mindful of it, not just reading about it, people’s thinking abilities become more powerful. 2500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Socrate cautioned, ‘You, my friend,’,are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?’ The act of thinking critically encompasses thinking for themselves by wisely examining the approach that they make sense of the world. Engaging this aspect of living is one of the most fulfilling way of being a mature human being. People are capable of thinking critically as the natural human ability is to reflect, to be aware of what they are thinking, doing or feeling. The problem is that they were never taught how to think and be mindful. Socrate said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living,’ emphasizing the insight that if people don’t practice their unique human ability to truly think and act intelligently, their lives have devalued meaning. By cautiously thinking back on what people think, they would be capable to consider the way of how their thinking works, and therefore train to think more efficiently. Wisely studying the ideas created by the thinking process, people understand that there are ideas that value studying.
Technologies encourage a shallow way of thinking, and misrepresents information with knowledge. John newton, head of Taunton School in Somerset, (Paton, G.) considers that critical thinking requires of having facts, and context, and the skill to balance them in order to not be confused with false information. ‘What I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Plant nothing else, and root everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning upon facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.’ (Dickens, C.) There are three very important aspects commonly disregarded in today’s education, and definitely not inspired by the recent digital lifestyle. First factor is to possess a good sense of one’s own unique identity. The second factor is to possess a sense of personal accomplishment, and the last factor would be to be helpful society. Critical thinking brings all three together through perceiving somewhat in an unusual way, and in a new approach. Creative thinking cannot be bought, copied, or warranted, but it can be cultivated with the proper surroundings. In current digital culture, with its accent on computation, there is a possibility that an increased number of individuals are going with the easiest way, and therefore think more and more like a computer, cooperate with, and adjust to its symbolic way of working. Even tough IQ scores have increased, other skills have remained the same. There has not been an associated rise of comprehensions into the economic condition, no actually outstandingly rise in the creative arts, nor the possibilities of neuroscience have increase related to preceding decades. Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education said, ‘I think that higher education in general is not demanding enough of students, academics are simply of less importance than they were a generation ago.’ (Rimer, Sara) Also, Daniel J. Bradley, the president of Indiana State University, said, ‘We haven’t spent enough time making sure we are indeed teaching, and students are learning, these skills.’ He also found that students didn’t register for classes that require considerable study. Education needs to harder motivate students because the generation that is raising do not like learning but merely see the monitor as a source of belief, or pieces of evidence, scantily processed that will fit their understanding without even checking their authenticity.
Critical thinking is declining because students are more and more dependent on the Internet for finding their information. Students must develop the skills and abilities that will prepare them to analyze the obvious disensus in a world where opinions and objections increase to almost all social aspects. A survey was conducted by the American Council on Education at the University of California at Los Angeles that showed that nearly eighty-three percent (82.9) of new freshman said they use the Internet for homework or research. This survey included responses from 275, 811 students at 469 different colleges and universities throughout the nation (Honan, W.H.). As convenient and accessible the Internet is, it is clear how many advantages the Internet has. Using the internet may increase the extra evaluative effort for a student able to distinguish the academic information he finds. Yet if students rely too much on Internet for their academic ideas, they mistake knowledge with information, making research too easy. The main function of the higher education is risked if the students relying on the Internet stop to evaluate the information they are given. "Our institutions' primary mission is to expand students' intellectual capacities," said Alexander W. Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California. (Astin, A.W.) The intellectual potential of students of higher education is not being developed without gaining of knowledge formed from different pieces of information. Therefore, it is questionable if relying on the Internet as a resource of research faces a risk to one of the primary purposes of higher education, regardless of the advantages of the Internet. This increasing dependence of students onto Internet has been associated with a decline in the quality of their critical thinking. The information presented by the Internet is decontextualized and often unpredictable, yet the students are putting Internet found information together as something completely factual. Knowledge cannot be confused with the information. (Rothenberg, D.) Knowledge, a development that happens through analyzing and critical thinking, expands from adding different information together and getting a conclusion. After sources of unprocessed data on Internet are manipulated it becomes information, and only through cautious evaluation the information will help structure a solid conclusion. (Iseke-Barnes, J.M.) Student should be able to analyze the information found on the Internet, and also they need to learn how to appreciate the discrepancy in order to develop their critical thinking. Unfortunately, students believe that the Internet gives conclusions rather that unfounded data. They think that is not necessary to analyze the information from the Internet, this being an explanation of why the quality of critical thinking is declining. The students are not doing much to develop their minds, as they do not usually carefully consider the source of the data and the motives behind the dispute’s conclusions. If the primary objective of the educational system is indeed to "expand students' intellectual capacities," (Astin, A.W.) then students should analyze any disputes they meet so they will practice critical thinking. In order for students to see progress in acquiring critical thinking skills they don’t need to absorb all kinds of data, and put together pieces of information as conclusions, but they really need to start thinking and analyzing the facts they have. Critical thinking has little use as students absorb the information from the informed individuals. But since anybody can post opinions on the Internet, they should be aware of many uninformed knowers that will led them astray. As students would become convinced that such a method to understanding and trusting of information is complicated and unreliable, they will start using and developing their critical thinking abilities. They will be encouraged to always look for information, evidence, and opinions on the Internet until they will check various sources claiming to provide the data they need. Once they do that, they will find little accuracy of any given information. Facing this conflict, the students will realize that they need to negotiate between sources of information, this leading them to using their critical thinking skills. Reintroduced attention to using critical thinking to the Internet will be needed if the students will continue to rely so much on the Internet.
Gaming is purported to hold promise for education, in part, because it is thought to develop 21st century skills such as critical thinking. (Gerber, Sue and Logan Scott) There has been done studies to demonstrate the relationship between video games and critical thinking process, and the outcomes of a survey of 121 adults showed that gamers and non-gamers do not vary much on critical thinking abilities. Yet, tactic gamers achieved greater on actively critical thinking than other gamers did achieve. As well, less participation with gaming society demonstrated higher critical thinking abilities competed with higher participation. The primary objective of the survey was to analyze the degree to which playing games is linked to the abilities concerning critical thinking. The research was intended to evaluate the statement that education and learning can be improved by video games, but the results did not confirm the statemen regarding critical thinking. Furthermore, less involvement with gaming, spending less amount of time playing games, and having less friends that play video games was linked with better critical thinking abilities. Researchers found that extreme engagement, or even gaming dependency is related with lower critical thinking abilities. In addition, multiple studies demonstrated that violent video games are linked to many negative effects. Violent video games triggers aggressive thinking, and increases the activation of aggressive knowledge and aggressive memory. The cost of violent games is showed by the finding that Chinese children who play video games extensively not only have higher nonverbal IQ but also are more aggressive. (Greenfield P. M.) Game subject is decisive to psychological consequences, for example the outcomes of violent screen activity. In fact, more than 85% of games includes violence. Studies indicate that playing violent games yields destructive conduct, destructive cognitive, physiological stimulation, desensitization to real-life violence, and a decrease in prosocial behavior. Furthermore, research also showed that video games encourage divided attention and multitasking. Foerde researched and proved that divided attention does not improve critical thinking. (Greenfield P. M.) They created a weather prediction task which in the first situation they were multitasking, and in the second condition they were concentrating on just one task. Participants were given clues on how to predict the weather in both situations equally. However, participants that were multitasking were unaware of the clues given to them during the multitasking. Results speak that video games and multitasking does not improve the ability to think critically, as the participants were less mindful. Furthermore, another study, the Stroop task, which analyzed the impact of video games experience on critical thinking, demonstrated that even if video games has a positive effect on spatial cognition, they are negatively associated to critical thinking control. For instance, prior research revealed that video games experience may increase the efficiency of laparoscopic procedures in surgical residents, and benefit the visuospatial cognition. (Bailey, Kira, Robert West, and Craig A. Anderson.) To compare the positive outcomes of gaming, proof of studies reveal that video games are negatively associated to thinking process. All these studies demonstrate that high levels of video game consumption may be associated with a reduction in the efficiency of those processes supporting cognitive control that arise from interactions between anterior cingulate and lateral frontal cortex (Bailey, Kira, Robert West, and Craig A. Anderson.) The conclusion is that video games are bad for thinking deeply, and data studies inhibit the statements supported by many scholars and journalists. Video games does not improve critical thinking process nor improves attention.
Furthermore, consistently research has shown the effects of multitasking, ‘a constant level of interruption, interferes negatively with deep thinking’ (Greenfield, Susan. Mind Change). The widespread utilization of media methods in the 21st century has been related with declined cognitive skills, and also with reduced academic accomplishment. People that perform poorly in situations requiring cognitive skills are individuals who are involved in intense, continual media multitasking. Loh, Kep Kee and Kanai, Ryota, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom (Loh, Kep Kee, and Ryota Kanai) in a study explored the relationships between brain anatomy and media multitasking. This study brought out that brain makeup can be misshapen because of extended experience to different experience and situations. This was confirmed via Voxel-Based Morphometry analyses: Individuals with higher Media Multitasking Index scores had smaller gray matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex. ( Loh, Kep Kee, and Ryota Kanai), The findings of this study demonstrated how negatively media multitasking influences the process of critical thinking, and how interdependent is the relationship between heavier media multitasking and declining of the cognitive skills. Multitaskers behavior is closely associated with the difference and declined critical thinking abilities. Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University of Science and Technology, says, ‘The technology distraction level is accelerating to the point where thinking deeply is difficult. (Greenfield P. M.) We are overwhelmed by a constant barrage of devices and tasks.’ The Internet setting intensely encourage multitasking situations. Stimulated by the existence of so many Internet technology, these situations have been associated with declined critical thinking greater distraction and, also poor performance in the classroom. In addition, the study of Mareike B. Wieth and Bruce D. Burns, Department of Psychological Science, University of Sydney, demonstrated how distractions negatively impact on critical thinking in a multitasking situation. ( Wieth, Mareike B., and Bruce D. Burns) Individuals were given an incentive or not, and they were asked to resolve intuition problem while they were in a single task or in double task. After they finished solving the problems, individuals were given a recall test. The results demonstrated that the incentive only conducted to improvement of thinking skills in the single task situation but not in the double task situation. In addition, outcomes brought out that the incentive in the double task situation conducted to an intensive remembrance of unrelated information. But, the study in general demonstrated that an incentive only was not capable to improve critical thinking in a multitasking condition. Actually, an incentive appeared to stimulate even more shallow thinking related to an increase of recall of unrelated information. ‘There is a greater emphasis on real-time media and multitasking rather than focusing on a single thing.’ Greenfield thinks we are watching a variation process reveal. Even if the skills of multitasking and using of technology are crucial in certain fields, like medicine and aviation, and many individuals are performing better at many tasks simultaneously, multitasking doesn’t improve the ability of individuals to think critically.
Technology in the 21st century has confirmed to be very captivating, and very often, addictive. Digital technology is poorly, deeply reshaping the way individuals read and think, despite the cognitive advantages presented by the screen technology. In an interview, Susan Greenfield declared that, ‘Technology might be changing the brain.’ ("Interview with Baroness Susan Greenfield OBE, DPhil.") Researchers brought up many evidence and studies regarding the intensive use of the technology and sustained that even if some cognitive abilities are improved, the critical thinking wastes away because of restructuring in the millennials brains. ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’ (T.S. Elliot) Because digital natives grew up with Internet technologies, they are inclined toward shallow thinking actions represented accompanied by distractions and multitasking. They involve in so many multitasking actions that relates to intensified distractibility and less critical thinking abilities. ‘Students are not learning even basic general knowledge, they are not developing higher-level cognitive skills, and they are not retaining their knowledge very well. In fact, there is no significant difference between students who take courses and students who do not. (Fink L. D.)’ With IQ tests intelligence rising globally, people believe much of this change is related to the increased use of technology. Even if the capabilities of video games, Internet and multitasking may assist the increased IQ tests intelligence, the results of them appear to deeply influence user’s critical thinking abilities, their reflection, and analysis. Media skills do actually improve some kind of information processing, but unfortunately do not allow time for reflection, analysis, or imagination. Video games promotes multitasking and enhances visual skills, yet carrying out more than one task simultaneously causes divided attention. People who are watching too much television don’t think how TV impedes the development of their reading, thinking abilities, personal potential, and how bad it is for developing minds. Although media helps individuals to better process information, exposure to information technology has led to a decline in users’ abilities to analyze, and think deeply. In an age of computers, video games, and the Internet, there's a growing dilemma about how bad technology is changing critical thinking and whether benefits the society. What does improve reflection, vocabulary and critical thinking in a way that media does not is reading. ‘We are literally and physiologically both what we read and how we read.’ (Wolf M., Ullman-Shade C., Gottwald S.) Reading is so important as it improves the skills to reason, enrich linguistic skills and develop inner speech, which is crucial to critical thinking. Reading also will encourage individuals to confidently question and analyze the beliefs and conventional views, and also have the confidence to invent new suggestions wi…