By David Hegg

As we plunge deeper into the information culture, it is clear many want to do our thinking for us. Issues swirl around us, and each news cycle brings yet another bombast that demands our attention and our verdict. If we’re not careful about what we take in and how we understand it, we’ll find the media doing all our thinking for us.

The problem is twofold. First, manipulating our beliefs has become a significant industry. Many advertisers, pundits, politicians, journalists, salespersons and businesses, big and small, aim at creating certain beliefs in us. They do it through rapid-fire images and commentary, smooth presentations, sentimental vignettes, and too often, partial truths or straight-out lies. Compounding the problem is the fact that we now see this as the new normal. We have become almost completely duped into thinking outside influences can be counted on to tell us how and what to think about nearly everything.

Second, as we become more and more responsive rather than proactive in analyzing facts and forming our own opinions, as a nation, we are losing our ability to think deeply. Like........

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