Confluences between critical thinking and social media in the educational world. Mapping experiences and detecting challenges

Abstract

Social media have become the communication channel and the usual means of information par excellence. With this, there is growing concerned about the consequences of their use and how they can influence how social problems are addressed and identities are constructed. Therefore, new challenges arise in the education world in which critical thinking is an increasingly necessary transversal competence. Against this background, this paper aims to analyse how the scientific literature dealt with the development of critical thinking in education in social media during 2012-2021 through a systematic review of the literature. The search was focused on the Core Collection of the Web of Science (WoS), and the review was undertaken using a mixed method. The main results show that the development of critical thinking should be linked to social media, and the need to educate critical thinking from the perspective of critical digital literacy is highlighted. However, there needs to be more scientific production to guide educational policies to address them in the classroom, which implies the challenge of opening new avenues of research in this line.