Can Twitter and Facebook Make Good Thinkers of America’s Next Leaders?

Eric Michael Murphy

Security, United States

The debate continues over the value of social media to those looking to develop deep knowledge.

Recently, James Carafano wrote a thought-provoking article based on the premise that American leadership has lost the ability to think deeply and well. This is not an uncommon refrain, nor is the solution he proposes — improved education — but, in elucidating his point, he makes the following argument:

Next, the quality of the education matters. Here both form and content have to be addressed. It might be “deeply unfashionable,” writes Molly Worthen, but emails, Facebook, blog posts, videos and PowerPoint slides aren’t good tools for teaching deep thinking. Daniel Levitin comes to the same conclusion in his book. Deep thinking is stimulated by prolonged attention to a subject that requires activities such as reading books; listening to live, interactive lectures; and experiencing Socratic teaching. If school officials are not building programs around these time-consuming, contemplative and challenging activities, they are just delivering diplomas.

He’s right, of course, but hidden in his truth is a deeply problematic issue regarding “emails, Facebook, [and] blog posts.” Most fundamentally, he misframes the issue as it regards these media, describing an implicit expectation that deep thought and deep learning must come from a single experience and that these activities are not meaningfully additive to the reading of books, interactive engagement, Socratic teaching, etc. And in this regard, he is simply wrong. So, what is the value of these electronic media to those looking to develop deep knowledge?

A Word on Definitions