Importance of Critical Thinking in Different Areas of Our Lives

Critical thinking is the art of thinking rationally and actively. It is important to conceptualize and analyze the information humans collect from their surroundings. Critical thinking is important in all areas of life. People with critical thinking excel in life because they have the necessary skills that can take them places. The article will discuss the importance of critical thinking and how it impacts our lives.

Before starting the main topic, the importance of critical thinking in our lives, it is important to clarify the concept of critical thinking. Critical thinking involves the use of certain phenomena that enhance and support critical thinking among humans. Such as:

• Observation of incoming information. Now it is important to observe the information consciously from the mind instead of absentmindedly looking at it.
• Reflecting upon the information that is coming to us. Reflection means to ponder upon the event, information, or scenario and think of it from various points.
• Be open to different perspectives even if they differ from yours.
• Think of reasons for each opinion or point of view. People do not form their opinions without any reason. Try to get to that reason and understand the mindset.
• Communicate the differences in opinions and hear others’ ideas to receive different opinions and broaden the thinking spectrum.
• Think of the advantages and disadvantages of a situation before making a decision.
• Think clearly and rationally.
• Look for evidence.
• Make a decision timely.
• Ask question. Satisfy your curious mind.
• Prepare an argument with facts and different perspectives.

On the contrary, critical thinking is often confused with other things. Here are the things that critical thinking is not:

• Negative thinking.
• Judging others.
• Thinking in black and white/polar thinking.
• Deciding emotionally.
• Ideal and perfect thinking.

In simple words, critical thinking is a person’s ability to rationally think. It is an active process rather than passively collecting information. The importance of critical thinking can be assumed by the ability of problem-solving and decision-making.

Importance of Critical Thinking in Different Areas of our Lives

Critical thinking a skill that can be applied in different areas of our lives and it positively impacts our lives.

1. Critical Thinking in Education

The importance of critical thinking cannot be separated from education. A student needs to develop critical thinking to succeed in practical life. Since education is the one thing that often determines the course of a person’s life. therefore, it is necessary to have the skill of critical thinking while learning. When students ask questions and critically analyze the incoming information, they better understand the content and can take in-depth knowledge of the topic. And in-depth understanding can never harm students.

2. Critical Thinking in Workplace

When we enter the workforce, we realize that survival is difficult because of the competition in the market. Survival in the job market depends upon the ability to produce new ideas and concepts in the market that are liked by the consumer to get profit. Innovation and breeding new ideas are not possible without critical thinking. One important thing in this regard is that developing critical thinking in schools and colleges helps individuals to succeed in the workplace.

3. Importance of Critical Thinking in Research

Research is purely based on critical thinking skills. Without critical thinking, the ability to do good research in any field is impossible. The research uses all the processes that are involved in critical thinking such as, observation, experimentation, formulating hypotheses, calculating results based on the observation and factual data, and reaching a decision. So, one can say that research is almost similar to critical thinking. Moreover, when you are reading research papers of other scholars, critical thinking is the most important skill to analyze them and create your new idea, to identify the loopholes and gaps, and to see the window on which you can work.

4. Better Decision Making

Critical thinkers are good at making decisions. They make take more time than normal people to reach a decision but the probability of them making the right decision is more. What is the reason behind it? For beginners, critical thinkers take their time to analyze the situation with a calm mind instead of jumping to conclusions under the influence of emotions. Moreover, one of the basic things involved in critical thinking is to ponder over different perspectives. These help the individuals from thinking from a wider perception and hence help in making a better decision.

4. Critical Thinking Improves Empathy

What happens in critical thinking is that people analyze and think over different perspectives. During this process, they try to understand the point of view of the other person. As a result, their understanding of different situations increases – hence empathy is improved. Because empathy requires the same skill of understanding other’s perspectives without having to change one’s own.

5. Importance of Critical Thinking in Arguments

Not everyone can achieve the right skills to develop good argumentative or debate skills. The reason is the lack of critical thinking. Due to the lack of critical thinking, people fail to listen or understand others’ perspectives. They also cannot defend their argument using various examples. They are often fixated o trying to make others understand their point of view, which results in failure to make a good argument during debates.

6. Importance of Critical Thinking for Politics

Every citizen who is a voter in their country needs to be aware of the political scenario of the state. Moreover, it is necessary to do research and make a decision regarding whom to cast their vote. For this, critical thinking is essential. It enables people to see the faults of leaders and analyze their mistakes and policies without the involvement of emotions in the whole process. This way the citizens can make the right decision and the political scenario of the country can improve.

7. Critical Thinking leads to Self-growth

One of the things involved in the process of critical thinking is the ability to self-reflection. Pondering over one’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and constantly trying to improve them. When individuals develop the habit of self-reflect themselves on various stages of lives and in various situation, they analyze themselves. In the process, self-criticism is inevitable. But a healthy approach to self-criticism is to look out for the solutions, stop dwelling in past, and practically improving the flaws of one’s personality. This way, critical thinking leads individuals towards a positive self-growth.

Why is Critical Thinking Rare?

Despite the importance of critical thinking in almost all areas of our lives, why are we lacking? What are we doing wrong that there is a decline of critical thinkers in today’s age?

Looking at the grass-roots level, it starts from households when children are scolded for asking too many questions or when they are not taken seriously for their questions. Later on, schools nowadays are focusing more on grades and rote learning instead of assessing the individuality of students and make education plans accordingly.

Moreover, schools are also responsible for shaping students’ minds into a fixed standard and discouraging their creativity and uniqueness. Famous philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle use to roam in the streets and ask questions from different people to start other questions in their minds. Whereas, our institutes order students to learn what is written in the books and stop the brain from thinking or asking atypical questions. This way, the process of not developing critical thinking has inculcated in our minds, and even in later stages of life, people find it difficult to think critically because they have not done this their entire lives.

Conclusion

Critical thinking – the ability to think logically – is one of the defining factors of human lives, intelligence, and freedom. The importance of critical thinking in every field of life is evident. Therefore, parents, teachers, and people as a whole should focus on developing critical thinking.