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Critical thinking is the process of observing and assessing before acting, of questioning and challenging thoughts and information we are presented with in order to better understand and seek truth before taking action. It requires honest questions and is not just open to new and varied information it is constantly seeking it out. It is a mental process obsessed with ‘why’ and ‘how’ and is a crucial part of problem solving, learning, innovation, societal compromise. And in a world absolutely drowning in information of all kinds and qualities wherein we are forced to act as our own filters the ability to think critically has never been more crucial.
The amount of information we are exposed to on a daily basis is staggering. The sheer volume of it would seem ludicrously impossible to people even fifty years ago, never mind fifty years before that. Newspapers, radio, and television, each advance in technology massively expanded the average person’s access to information from more and more of the world at large. The arrival of the internet exploded that access exponentially and social media platforms have done so again several times over, becoming an ongoing avalanche of ‘a lot of very little’.