At the very least, more viewpoints expressed bring more options to the conversation.
This itself is perhaps as damaging to LDS Inc as their mis steps and coverups that are all being unleashed via google.
The unrestrained nature of online forums, from the crazy trolls that drop by here to the LDS Freedom Forum not only offer a different viewpoint, but allow us to peer into the minds of people that are so different from us, yet we know enough of the indoctrination process to understand how they got there.
Perhaps it is better to treat these people with pity.
That's an interesting question. Off hand, I'd say no, for two reasons: (1.) The rise of the internet has corresponded with a decline in advanced literacy, meaning the ability to process long texts. People are mostly reading very short texts online, and are not reading long print articles or books as much as they did in the past. (It's even happened to me, and I probably used to read 100 or more books a year.) The ability to process long texts and follow complex arguments throughout a long text has suffered dramatically.
(2.) People can easily self-ghettoize online, seeking out forums tailored to very narrow interests and viewpoints. In many forums, conformity to a single set of opinions is valued so highly that anyone offering an alternative view is immediately labeled a troll. Dissent from a prescribed viewpoint isn't seen as a challenge, but actually as a kind of pathology in some cases.
Both of those factors lead me to believe that critical thinking is undermined by the way we use the internet. I'm not sure the wider availability of information is enough to make up for them. When it comes to Mormons, I think it's fairly easy for them to insulate themselves in a TBM online ghetto and avoid "anti" material.
On the other hand, I've seen a few people here and elsewhere online say that they first started doubting the church when doing research for a talk or Sunday school lesson, and finding material that contradicted church teaching. But for the most part, I think people who use the internet to study their way out of the church deliberately seek out the "damaging" information because they're already doubting.
As with any source material, it depends on what you are reading. If all you read are false flag and 9-11 truther blogs online, then no, I'd have to say you are not getting better at critical thinking.
If you read a diverse variety of things, from many sources and many points of view, spend some time determining if the sources or writers of the words you are looking at are legitimate and credible, then yes, I'd say you are probably getting more experience using critical thinking skills, and becoming more of a critical thinker.
But, like the farmer says: you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. You can also lead a believer of myths and lies to the truth, but you cannot make them think.
However, you spend a lot more time having to research this and that and there are many many viewpoints.
There is a lot of crap you have to filter through before you find the "truth" or evidence that strengthens whatever opinion you are forming at the time.
Phazer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think it does help. > > However, you spend a lot more time having to > research this and that and there are many many > viewpoints. > > There is a lot of crap you have to filter through > before you find the "truth" or evidence that > strengthens whatever opinion you are forming at > the time.
The crap that needs to be filtered is exactly what I am referring to.
For example, my father was an old school type college professor. If it was written in a textbook it was the absolute truth.
Today we have a generation that has been accustomed to question all that is printed or published, which is why I think the internet has improved these skills.
Yes there are the crackpots. This is not new, but certainly they have a larger stage. However, I think there is a better ability of more people to determine their credibility.
Simple slogans such as "not necessary for your salvation" no longer passes muster when there is overwhelming contradicting information that people may form their own opinion.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2014 02:08PM by deco.
We have had search capable internet for amost 20 years. Are people smarter? I don't think so. The church is still here and government corruption is the most rampant I have ever seen in the US. All with so called internet exposure.
It has great potential but getting the potential out of it is work and frankly, the mass majority of people are lazy and don't want to put the effort in. Heck. People stay in the church or accept corruption because they are too lazy to do otherwise.
Being a free and educated individual is a lot of work. Most people don't want to put the effort in to be such internet or no internet.
Loss of LDS church members and the TV show "Catfish."
We learn to be skeptical. We learn to read an opinion without discarding it because the person is black, or Russian, or fat, or gay...because we don't know that.
We learn that people are just people, some are worth your time and others are not.
This is true even if you are a forum follower of Jesse Ventura, Alex Jones, are a Republican, birther, a truther, a liberal, a Republican or self-identify as a UFO abduction victim.
As you argue over standards of proof within your own bubble, your mind gets sharper.
If, on the other hand, you use the internet to watch movies and tv, no, you are probably not getting smarter.
The internet doesn't "do" anything. It sits there, waiting for us to use its resources (or not).
The resources on the internet range from fact to fancy, from delusion to fantasy, from reason to madness. You can find all of the above and more. Such ideas and claims have existed as long as there have been humans -- it's just never been so easy to see the wide range of human thought, reason, and folly as it is now.
What we *do* with the stuff on the internet is what can improve "critical thinking skills." Or reinforce delusion. Up to us. Not up to "the internet." :)
I had my doubts starting in 1987 in the Salt Lake temple. it took the information I found on Mormonthink about the Book of Abraham to finally free my mind.
I don't think so. I also don't think you need much in the way of critical thinking skills to get yourself out of the mormon church. I do think many people have left the church thanks to the internet. Not because they developed razor sharp thinking skills but because they found out their prophet used a rock in the hat and boinked teenage girls.
I'm a big believer in Kevin Drum's "cognitive inequality of the internet" theory which argues on the whole humanity is getting dumber because of the internet.
Premise 1: The internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. The internet allows smart people, who know how to filter out the crap, to find any question instantaneously. Dumb people, on the other hand, get caught up in tin-foil hat theories and other rabbit holes.
Premise 2: There are more dumb people than smart people
Ergo, in the aggregate, the internet us making us dumber.
Depends on whether you shop around the edges or in the center. On the whole, people are not the wisest shoppers and I think such stores are responsible for the rise in obesity, diabetes, and health problems of overindulgence. Maybe that's why the smartest shoppers use local produce, farmers' markets, co-ops.