{"id":1589,"date":"2020-01-16T01:08:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T01:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dz3x5tw8ej.wpdns.site\/?p=1589"},"modified":"2020-01-24T20:59:53","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T20:59:53","slug":"chilling-new-study-says-most-college-educated-americans-fail-at-basic-digital-literacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/chilling-new-study-says-most-college-educated-americans-fail-at-basic-digital-literacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Chilling New Study Says Most College Educated Americans Fail At Basic Digital Literacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Prudy\nGourguechon<\/strong><\/a> | Originally\npublished on Forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The third annual State of Critical\nThinking Study <\/a>released yesterday by MindEdge Learning<\/a>, an\neducational technology consultancy, reveals that while most Americans believe\ncritical thinking and digital literacy are important capacities in today’s\nworkplace, a large majority flunk a test that assesses those same abilities.\nThe implications for educators and employers are significant but even more\nfrightening are the immediate implications for free and fair elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The test examines whether respondents can\nreliably identify suspicious material on the internet. This means paying\nattention to such details as spelling or grammatical errors, the presence or\nabsence of photo credits, indications that the content is promoted or\nsuspicious web addresses. Only seven percent of the respondents scored an\n“A” on the test, answering eight or nine questions correctly. Three\nquarters of millennial respondents received an “F” grade, failing to\nget more than five questions right. Interestingly, older respondents scored a\nlittle better than Millennials who are generally considered more web-savvy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ominously, the trend <\/a>is\ndownward. In the first MindEdge study in 2017, 24% of respondents got eight or\nnine questions correct. The percentage decreased to 19% in 2018, slipping\nfurther to seven percent in this year’s study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another disturbing finding is that\nrespondents vastly over-estimate their own competence in this arena.\nEighty-four percent of those surveyed believe critical thinking is important in\nassessing online content for legitimacy and for verifying facts. A stunning 88%\nreport that they are confident in their own critical thinking skills. This\nconfidence butts up against the results of the study showing that the vast\nmajority cannot pass a basic test that assesses the ability to identify fake\nnews content. If you don’t know you have a vulnerability you can’t do anything\nabout it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lesson here may be that we are all\nsusceptible to the seduction of false or deliberately manipulative internet\ncontent and should be vigilant and humble rather than confident about our\nability to detect it. The real danger may be a false belief that we are smarter\nthan those who seek to promulgate misinformation or send emails designed to\ncreate hacking portals into private files. This is important data with obvious\nalarming implications for future elections. Despite their overconfidence in\ntheir own abilities and poor performance on the digital learning test, most of\nthe MindEdge survey’s respondents were worried about possible foreign\ninterference in the 2020 presidential election. Two thirds reported being\nconcerned that social media and fake news sites will be used by foreign\ngovernments to influence the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MindEdge’s title for its annual State of\nCritical Thinking Study is somewhat misleading. Critical thinking <\/a>is an essential leadership capacity, and in fact a vital capacity for\ncitizenship or any kind of work that involves decision-making. But it is far\nmore complex than the digital literacy functions evaluated in the present\nstudy. Critical thinking includes the ability to make judgments, compare and\ncontrast different scenarios, predict consequences of actions and overcome\ncognitive biases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how highly developed one’s\ncapacity for critical thinking may be, it is always susceptible to regression.\nUnder states of heightened emotionality we are all likely to have diminished\ncapacity to think carefully and rationally. Our current social psychological\nstate of political divisiveness and heightened fear is bound to make poorer\nthinkers of all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another force that decreases the capacity\nfor thinking in a clear and discriminating manner is social pressure. As deeply\nsocial creatures, humans are uncomfortable taking an independent stance when\nothers are jumping on a bandwagon. Unfortunately, the wish to conform to the\ngroup’s thinking is often unconscious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MindEdge study makes an important\ncontribution in alerting us to overconfidence and underperformance as we\nencounter manipulated content on the internet. But the detection of false or\nmisleading information on the internet can also be taught. And should be.\nDetection of suspicious emails or internet material requires monitoring\nemotional responses, increasing attentional capacity, a heightened index of\nsuspicion and concrete information on the signs and signals that indicated\ndeception. Companies would be wise to train their leaders and employees to\nbecome proficient in detection of phishing emails, native advertising (promoted\nmaterial that mimics the site it is sitting on), fake news stories and other\nrisks that populate the internet landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prudy Gourguechon<\/em><\/strong> is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who advises leaders in business and finance on the underlying psychology of\u00a0critical decisions. She is currently working on a book, “Starting Older: Understanding and Making the Most of a New Life Stage.” <\/em> Prudy is part of the Chicago Chapter of SoPE, a senior contributor to Forbes.com on leadership strategy, and President of Invantage Advising, a consulting firm specializing in the psychology of business. <\/em>www.invantageadvisiing.com<\/em><\/a> <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Prudy Gourguechon | Originally published on Forbes.com The third annual State of Critical Thinking Study released yesterday by MindEdge Learning, an educational technology consultancy, reveals that while most Americans believe critical thinking and digital literacy are important capacities in today’s workplace, a large majority flunk a test that assesses those same abilities. The implications for educators and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1622,"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/1622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sopenet.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}