How Google and Smartphones are Harming Critical Thinking Skills

 PHILADELPHIA, PA, USA – Is critical thinking a lost art? Why should people bother to think anymore, since they can use their computers or smartphones to do their thinking for them?
 
A recent article in Wired magazine entitled “Google’s Grand Plan to Make Your Brain irrelevant’ (http://www.wired.com/business/2014/01/google-buying-way-making-brain-irrelevant) raised these thought-provoking questions.
 
The Wired article said that, “The more Google ‘knows,’ the less we have to remember.... As we export more and more of our intelligence to Google, the question might become: What are our own brains for?”
 
Many authors and educators are raising the alarm about the need to teach key critical thinking skills.
 
A recent global survey of more than 1,000 teachers found that 92 percent named critical thinking as a crucial skill students need to succeed in higher education. But 85 per cent of the teachers said their students had not learned the ability to think critically during their school years. http://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/01/24/students-lack-critical-skills.aspx
 
“American society has neglected critical thinking skills in favor of instant communication and political sound bites,” said Donald L. Karshner, author of Be a Critical Thinker: Hone Your Mind to Think Critically.
 
An 86-year-old retired teacher and minister who has had a lifelong interest in developing critical thinking, Karshner wrote his book to “inspire people to think rationally rather than emotionally when making decisions.”
 
Donald L. Karshner’s book Be a Critical Thinker offers a clear process for applying critical thinking in daily life in order to preserve and nurture this essential skill. Midwest Book Review called this book “a model of rational thought, highly recommended and instructive"
 
More information at: http://amzn.to/1can3ee

 

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