Using the full potentialities of the ICT (especially the information contained on Internet) requires more and more critical thinking. Do you agree? If not why?
Yes, I agree.
Critical thinking is essential for appraising the validity of information on the Internet. In some areas tools have been developed to assist users with this task. For example 'Health on the Net' has gained favour by helping citizens assess the quality of medical and health information sites, many of which are dubious https://www.healthonnet.org
More broadly, using ICT effectively requires critical thinking around the relative benefits of using technology when it may not be required, or where human cognition might prove a better guide to decision making.
Being able to assess the evidence supporting the use of particular types of ICT for particular uses is also worthwhile.
Avoiding slavish obedience to computer-generated advice is important Many people have run into accidents by obeying their in-car satellite navigation systems, for example!
Critical thinking is even needed in functions as simple as searching the Internet...or searching a research database. What are the keywords most likely to be associated with content I want to find?
Well-constructed searches provide good content. Poorly-constructed searches do not find the best information.
Critical thinking is required in most aspects of life. In the academic context students need to be able to make critical decisions about internet sites and their validity, authority, currency, objectivity etc. They then need to be able to critically asses the information they gain from scholarly sites to form their own conclusions on issues.
Depends on how you define "use".
Well over 50% of the data traffic on the internet today (probably closer to 2/3-rds) consists of the streaming videos. Allegedly, 30% of the total traffic is porn. I've also read something about Netflix using >10% of the bandwidth in US.
So the majority of the net traffic today is simply entertainment with almost-zero cognitive content. Critical thinking isn't really needed to consume Netflix or (majority of) youtube videos. And it probably stands in a way when it comes to porn, LOL!
However, some of us do use internet for data mining and decision support. And here, a critical thinking is really necessary since there is no guarantee for the quality of content. Not to say that outside of pure science, there may not be a clear "best solution" to any of the issues.
And of course, some people out there will do anything to "sell" you their point of view and products.
And yes, I would agree that the critical thinking is extremely important for these use cases.
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