When critical thinking isn’t enough: to beat information overload, we need to learn ‘critical ignoring’

[Mary Wilson]

Published: February 2, 2023 4.00am EST

Authors Ralph Hertwig​, Anastasia Kozyreva​, Sam Wineburg​,Stephan Lewandowsky​

The web is an informational paradise and a hellscape at the same time.

A boundless wealth of high-quality information is available at our fingertips right next to a ceaseless torrent of low-quality, distracting, false and manipulative information. ...

But is it enough in a world of information overabundance and gushing sources of disinformation? The answer is “No” for at least two reasons.

First, the digital world contains more information than the world’s libraries combined. Much of it comes from unvetted sources and lacks reliable indicators of trustworthiness. Critically thinking through all information and sources we come across would utterly paralyse us because we would never have time to actually read the valuable information we painstakingly identify.

Second, investing critical thinking in sources that should have been ignored in the first place means that attention merchants and malicious actors have been gifted what they wanted, our attention. ...

Critical ignoring is the ability to choose what to ignore and where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities. Critical ignoring is more than just not paying attention – it’s about practising mindful and healthy habits in the face of information overabundance. ...

https://theconversation.com/when-cr...source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton


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[JJackson]

Thanks Mary. I had not heard of critical ignoring, but reading the article I find I have been employing all of the tactics listed for years. It seems to be an inevitable consequence of critical thinking, where time is a finite resource. I gave up on TV news decades ago as its linear structure ends up wasting time on trivial stories in the vain hope the editors might think something I view as newsworthy worth including, and even if they do it is treated so superficially you are barely any the wiser.