Skills Essential in the Information Age:
Critical Thinking and Checking Data

See also: Communication Skills

The development of the digital world brings many advantages and disadvantages. Of course, the focus of this article is not to decide whether there are advantages or disadvantages. We understand and know that everyone has their own opinion on this, and we are not taking a position or arguing for or against anything.

However, whatever our opinion on digitalisation, it is certainly almost impossible to avoid it in our daily lives. We therefore need to develop a conscious use of the internet and learn to manage the changes that the digital world has brought.

In this article, we try to summarise the skills you need to be able to deal with the flood of information as the online world evolves and help you to learn to distinguish between false and real news.

Person with headphones looking at a laptop screen.

There are many tools to find out information, for example, ClarityCheck reverse phone number lookup makes it easy to find out who called you. Knowing about software like this can help you improve your critical thinking and develop your decision-making skills.

Critical thinking allows you not only to accept what you hear or read, but also to be able to analyse, evaluate and make appropriate decisions. But how can we develop this skill and why is it essential in the modern world?

The Need for Critical Thinking

Critical thinking helps to ensure that our everyday decisions are logically based and well thought out. This is especially important when we are faced with a wealth of information in today's digital world. Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether information is true or false and so we need to use our critical thinking skills. As the digital world evolves, we are seeing more and more advertising, campaigning and AI-generated videos that are hard to tell whether they are true or false. But as critical thinking develops, we will be less influenced by these things and learn what to look out for.

Let's look at the benefits we can experience by learning to think critically:

Successfully Avoiding Manipulation

As mentioned above, the current advertising industry can use many influencing factors to deceive people. Fake prize draws, deceptive advertisements using the image of famous people to get money from people... And with the development of artificial intelligence, this becomes even easier. The scammers use videos of famous people and make it hard to tell if the video is real or fake. When it's hard to tell whether a video is real, human intelligence and critical thinking are needed to remain resilient to similar manipulations.

Better Decision-Making

The undoubted benefit of critical thinking is that it helps you make better decisions, whether it's about a career path, personal relationships, investing, shopping, etc. Really, whatever the decision, critical thinking teaches you to use multiple sources of information to weigh up the pros and cons and make a rational decision based on them.

More Confidence Overall

When you are confident in your own critical thinking, you trust yourself. You are confident because you are able to ask questions, verify the information you are given, so that you can significantly reduce the uncertainty that comes with your decisions. And in today's fast-changing world, this is particularly necessary.



How can you develop critical thinking?

The good thing is that you can develop critical thinking on an ongoing basis, as it is not something that is linked to age or life situation. Of course, every age has its relevance, but overall, critical thinking can be developed continuously with a few simple methods.

1. Question the Information

These days, you may come across information that doesn't match reality almost every day, whether it's a social media post, an advertisement or a piece of news. When you come across any such information, ask yourself a few questions, such as:

  • Is the information from a reliable source?

  • Is this information from a trustworthy source?

  • Can I verify this information from an independent source?

  • Is this news based on interest?

When you question information and try to find out whether it is true or not, you are already doing a lot to develop your critical thinking.

Fortunately, with digitalisation, you have almost every possible tool to learn to filter information. Just as the internet is unfortunately full of fake news, so too are there many tools and useful information. Whether you're trying to improve your skills or decipher the relevance of a piece of news, with the right use of the internet and critical thinking you can find what you're looking for in a matter of seconds.

2. Develop Your Analytical Skills

The truth lies beneath the surface - that is, the essence of critical thinking is being able to analyse the information that comes your way. When you question information, look for different sources or different perspectives that can support or counter-argue the information. The more opinions you read, the easier it is to determine which side you believe or what your own opinion is.

Peson writing on a tablet.

3. Think About the Background

Critical thinking is not just about trying to determine whether the information is true or not, because it can be difficult to tell at first. When looking for the source of the information, try to think about what would happen, for example, if the complete opposite of this news were true. Would anything change if the current claim were false? Run through some thought processes in your brain, this can help you a lot to develop a critical thinking process.


Summary

According to ClarityCheck, critical thinking is important not only in workplace decisions, but also in your personal life. Given the amount of misinformation that can be spread online in the digital age, it's worth developing the skills listed in this article and paying close attention to critical thinking in all areas of life.

You can protect yourself from many inconveniences if you encounter a case where you are contacted from an unknown phone number. Before you pick up the phone, check the phone number on ClarityCheck, because with digitalisation, scammers are able to use increasingly clever tricks to scam people.


About the Author


Ellie Yantsan is a digital marketer with more than 10 years of experience. She is a contributor to the Content Marketing Institute and is regularly quoted as an expert by large media outlets.

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