Social media, a dashboard for society’s intelligence?

I hesitate to say this but I suspect that social media is validating that we have failed to improve our educational systems.

I continue to see the masses who have completed high school not understand basic science principles or mathematics nor have the ability to understand or write text above the level of grade 6.

Problem solving and critical thinking is at a very beginner level and emotional influences decision making where it should not.

The decision to believe new information, for instance, whether fact or fiction is more about emotional investment in one’s personal beliefs than any kind of process to digest the new information utilizing some sort of logical structure.

The result is people are easily duped for the benefit of advertising, politics and simple pure manipulation to act.

Have we, as a society, discarded the importance of critical thinking as a tenant of the chance for humanity to have a future better than today?