The question of “how” to teach critical thinking skills has proven to be elusive, especially in this era of standardized curriculum and test-driven accountability for schools. How can teachers also ensure they’re supporting critical thinking in their students? It turns out they can do this by adding one simple step in their daily routine – a critical thinking challenge or query to kickstart students’ brains and encourage them to better analyze the information before them. 

It turns out that cultivating critical thinking skills can be difficult, even though many educators believe “that’s the point of what we’re training our students to be able to do,” says Ben Motz, a research scientist in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University.

Perhaps education has been missing a key ingredient when it comes to teaching students to detect faulty reasoning: practice. That’s the hypothesis that Motz and other psychology researchers from Indiana University tested in a study, funded by the Reboot Foundation, whose findings they believe point to a promising method for strengthening critical-thinking muscles.

More than half of people Reboot surveyed acknowledged that their social media use intensified their feelings of anxiety, depression or loneliness. Yet despite recognizing these deleterious effects, only about a third said they had taken steps to limit their social media use, such as deleting or suspending social media accounts, turning off their phones or limiting time on their feeds.

I find it incredible that even though users know the harm social media is having on their mental health, they’re unwilling – or unable – to limit their use of these platforms. It’s a lot like smokers and their cigarettes. We should treat it that way.