If You Have Reached Here Without Sharing, Well Done
Welcome to a social experiment on critical thinking
If you have in fact reached this page without sharing the post, well done, you are awarded the Geoffrey Cooling Critical Thinking Badge of honour. If you have in fact reached this page after sharing the post, I am sorry, you are an idiot. If you have shared the article and never reached this page, you are a special type of idiot. So do me a favour, go back to Linkedin or Facebook and like the post, no more. it will raise awareness of the post without actively sharing it.
Getting The Story
We at Hearing Aid Know had a recent incident with bad reporting, we quoted a report in the Times of India (a reputable news paper) in relation to the entry of a hearing aid manufacturer to the OTC market. In our defence, we made it clear that we could not find any corroboration of the story. We updated the post with the new evidence that we had found and re-shared the article.
A Strange thing
Somebody congratulated us on our efforts to get to the bottom of it, they also stated that they would be happier if other online influencers had done the same rather than just sharing the Times article without corroboration or evidence. It got me thinking, and as I am sure I have told you before, my wife says that is never a good thing.
Basically, I wanted to have a deeper look at the critical thinking of people within the hearing healthcare profession. We are supposed to be intelligent professionals right? So sorry and thank you for your involvement in this experiment. Please feel free to tell me what a nasty person I am in the comments.
Critical Thinking
I recently saw a respected hearing professional make a statement about a hearing aid site that I have great respect for. A statement without evidence, it irked me, it irked me more that people were sharing it without thought. We are supposed to be professionals, we are allegedly intelligent, maybe we should start with some critical thinking instead of cognitive bias.
Thank you Geoffrey.
I will wear my badge with pride 🙂
Mauritz
Having read your correction, I wondered why you were getting industry information from the Times of India to begin with!
In my defence, they cited Reuters
Glad to know I passed the test. Concerning to think that may not be the case for others.
Nice experiment Geoff, managed to get over the first hurdle, this time, Pheww!!
Hmm, yes, have read the article first as the headline pipped my interest.
Now the question… Do i still “like” the post on LinkedIn.
Actually the article is a great reminded to double check what we “think” we are liking and sharing before just blindly jumping off the cliff with the rest of the lemmings.
Love reading many of your articles.
Thanks Ted, that is exactly what I hoped the article would be, a reminder that we need to actually think for ourselves and take nothing at face value.
I did not share, I wanted to read what was being said. Critical thinking is not a strength in our society anymore… Makes me sad.
I left being a Licensed Dispenser almost 5 months ago. I miss the patients and helping people hear. I like to stay current with the news and read your articles.
Thank you for your posts.
I am sad you left and I agree that critical thinking seems to be a shortage in modern society.
I rarely share information for the reasons you express. That said…
In this post, where you correct your error for sharing unfounded information that you authored, you somehow blame people for doing the same? I appreciate your correction but in doing so you try to distance yourself from “those people” by deriding THEIR lack of reading and exploration. The irony is just too much!
Make your correction, own the mistake, and move on. Trying to help people recognize their error, your error, too, by calling them idiots takes a special kind of, well, idiot.
On the other hand, I like your posts and your website. They’re very insightful and thought provoking.
I think the main thrust of my derision was for people who comment and share without reading. In the case of the original article about GN Resound, we read the story, quoted it and cited it, while clearly saying we could not get verification but we would continue to try to get it. Eventually, we got the details of the call that was quoted and we quickly followed up with a clarification post with accompanying audio of the excerpt that was pertinent. Therefore taking responsibility for our error. We try to bring news of interest to our readers, while we do so, we take every care possible to ensure the details we report are correct. Sometimes that is difficult, when we do report something that has been difficult to clarify, we tell our readers so.