Critical Thinking in the Age of a COVID-19 and Infodemic-Filled Media

The emergence of COVID-19 caused the world to panic as it entered the second decade of the 21st century. The unexpected attack of the virus gave rise to an ‘infodemic’, whereby an overabundance of information, both true and false about the pandemic, spread across the internet and social media (Mheidly & Fares, 2020; Islam et al., 2020). The need for critical thinking is more apparent than ever as research pointed the finger at public fear and uncertainty as the main drivers of misinformation, rumors and conspiracy theories just to name a few. Academics have highlighted the dangers of misinformation in the age of social media, and have called on a collective effort, from journalists to governments, to fight the infodemic that has skewed factual content (Alam et al., 2020) and brought about the mistrust in health organizations and their policies (Depoux et al., 2020). However, what is perhaps more important to possibly curb the proliferation of misinformation is user attitude. While an array of initiatives has been proposed to help combat the problematic phenomenon, staying aware of the hazards of misinformation is also said to be effective to help news consumers discern what is true and what is false (Pennycook et al., 2020). This chapter thus discusses and reviews the importance of being a good skeptic and how a change in user approach can contribute to the fight against misinformation in the digital age amid the pandemic.