Is the Internet Getting Scarier? A Critical Time for Critical Thinking

“Is it just me or is the Internet scarier now?”

I have this question floating around as a feeling in my heart, and I also hear this in my sessions. We live in a society that has grown more and more reliant on the Internet; it’s a vast source of information that is constantly being controlled and manipulated by machinery designed for profit. As a result, the attempts to funnel this information into maximizing gains create the attention economy, competing to get in front of our eyes and influence our behavior.

Fear is a powerful hook for attention. We evolved over thousands of years to pay attention when we feel fear. Our brain also gets drawn towards novelty. We have this urge to be “the first”, especially in an individualist and capitalist society. One study from MIT researchers in 2018 showed that on Twitter, false news spreads up to 6x faster than truth does, and bots were removed from dataset. When they analyzed reasons for this, they found the root in emotion:

The MIT scholars examined this “novelty hypothesis” in their research by taking a random subsample of Twitter users who propagated false stories, and analyzing the content of the reactions to those stories.

The result? “We saw a different emotional profile for false news and true news,” Vosoughi says. “People respond to false news more with surprise and disgust,” he notes, whereas true stories produced replies more generally characterized by sadness, anticipation, and trust.

We must pay attention to these findings; we are not simply browsing a “neutral” Internet. If you and I go to an open grassy field in nature, we will have a neutral or random experience; designed by no one. If you and I go to a city, we are having a designed experience of variation - different people chose to design the streets, the storefronts, the shops, the decorations. But when we go into our phones or computers, we are immediately stepping into a domain controlled by only a few, extremely large and highly profitable companies.

Because of this and the intensifying gravity of political changes at the federal level, it is more and more essential every day to use and develop our skills in critical thinking and cultural humility.

So let’s break this down to make sure we know what we need to arm ourselves with in the years to come.

4 Parts of Critical Thinking on the Internet

1) Self-Regulation

• This is absolutely essential. Check in with yourself and notice how you feel. Your feelings will often influence what you believe without you even noticing. The more we practice noticing our feelings as they are rather than what they appear to be, the more we can balance the wisdom of our feelings with the wisdom of the rest of our system.

• Consider your biases. These come from simply being human, we all have them. Notice your belief system, your leaning, your perspective of the world. Your way of being is unique. It is meaningful, and it also has blindspots.

2) Evaluation

Practice scrolling with intention with me for a moment to help increase our evaluation skills. Stop on the first post offering information on a topic and ask yourself:

• Who posted this and how do I know them, if I know them?

• Where did they get this information?

• What is the evidence for it and can you find another source to back it up?

• What is the logic behind their argument, if they have one? Can you identify a logical fallacy if they’re using one?

3) Inference

• Consider the context. What does the author / creator intend for this post?

• Who benefits from this post, if anyone?

• How do I define trust with the sources of information on my feed?

• Pay attention to your feelings as well: these are inference points for your interpretation. Are they using language to elicit emotions from you? If so, how do those feelings affect you?

4) Explanation

• After you saw this post, what do you know now?

• What are your conclusions after seeing it?

• If you sent this to a friend, what would be your way of interpreting it to them?

Principles of Critical Thinking adapted from: https://akarisoftware.com/2024/02/28/the-potential-of-critical-thinking-in-academia/

Critical thinking can get us far when it comes to navigating the murky waters of the Internet. It can also close us off to connection with others, if we aren’t careful. This is why I propose the following:

Critical Thinking Needs Cultural Humility

First things first: what is cultural humility? Why not “competence”? I’ve seen this throughout my studies, but this definition from a healthcare and service providers research article by Lekas, Pahl, & Lewis (2020) felt the most poignant. I’ve taken a slight liberty for my own blog to adjust it to be applicable to all of us, not just those in healthcare:

Cultural humility refers to an orientation towards caring for [others] that is based on: self-reflexivity and assessment, appreciation of [others’] expertise on the social and cultural context of their lives, openness to establishing power-balanced relationships with [others], and a lifelong dedication to learning. Cultural humility means admitting that one does not know and is willing to learn from [others] about their experiences, while being aware of one’s own embeddedness in culture(s). While competence suggests mastery, humility refers to an intrapersonal and interpersonal approach that cultivates person-centered care. Cultural humility training encourages [us] to reflect on [our] own beliefs, values and biases—explicit and implicit—through introspection, thus, revealing [our] own culture’s impact on [others].

This may feel directly contrary to what I just said about critical thinking: should we just trust people when we hear their experiences? When we considered self-regulation earlier, we considered our biases. Our phones are a double-edged sword: designed to make us feel both that we are the masters of our own fate AND at the same time susceptible to the influences of mega-corporations. What if we could take that back… combat the false news and continuously confusing messages not only with critical lens of logic but also—with empathy?

Critical thinking is essential to our lives; and it is also deeply Western in concept. I see cultural humility as the yin to the yang of critical thinking.

Critical thinking says, “Think logically, be skeptical, and verify your sources.”

Cultural humility says, “What can I learn from others when I take a step back from my usual way of thinking?”

Critical thinking says, “Don’t trust everything you read or see.”

Cultural humility says, “Connect to the person so you can see the truth underneath.”

Critical thinking says, “Prove you’re trustworthy.”

Cultural humility says, “What are our differences and how does your pain echo my own?”

When these two are used together, there is so much more depth to what we can gain from the Internet. We can keep our humanity for ourselves and others AND get unhooked from the traps of emotionally manipulative content online.

My final note:

I will not deny the terror that is happening on a day to day basis in our country. There are scary things and harmful, terrible, sweeping changes that are absolutely necessary to be aware of. I want to also acknowledge that horrible things have been happening continuously throughout history and many of us (myself included) have become complacent and complicit in allowing continuous harm to the most vulnerable of our society. Yes, horrible things are happening. Yes, we do want to take action beyond our current comfort zones. And with both critical thinking and cultural humility, we can take effective action and change our world for the better.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead