There are various definitions of critical thinking; one of the basic ones is the process of analyzing facts to form an opinion or judgment. Critical thinking can be applied to almost any aspect of human life, and such an application could considerably raise the quality of decisions and life quality. However, this seems impossible due to time, energy, and information constraints; thus, in this work, only one application of critical thinking will be discussed – application to media.
These days, as media fuses with technology, its role in people’s lives grows – humans consume more content than ever before in history. The problem arises because human attention and algorithms do not work in such a way as always to reward and promote the most trustworthy sources. Therefore, many cases of fake news spread or disinformation occur despite people having access to all of the information necessary to discriminate between truth and lies. The inability of people to do so can lead to consequences of different severity, from minor misunderstandings to serious violence. This may happen even in developed and educated societies, as education is not an ultimate barrier to disinformation.
This is the case where critical thinking could be applied on an everyday basis. People need to go beyond simply consuming content; they need to analyze it, compare it with other facts and opinions, and formulate their opinion or judgment only after such an evaluation. Moreover, critical thinking also requires checking the sources of information; the habit of checking the sources every time a person gets some data can significantly improve the quality of decisions and opinions of the person.