Mindfulness in a World of Theory: What Critical Digital Literacy Actually Looks Like
‘Critical thinking’ is one of those educational buzzwords that, while it may have had meaning at some point, it no longer does. It is vague, and students are tired of hearing it. However, critical thinking has a cousin — critical literacy — and it is something to get excited about. Whereas critical thinking has become nothing more than an instrument of torture for K-12 students, critical literacy can actually change a person’s life.
Critical literacy is not something a person has or doesn’t have; it is a constantly developing tool used to sort wrong from right, unnecessary from useful, etc. It is difficult to define neatly. Vivian Maria Vasquez states (2017):
“Critical literacy should not be a topic to be covered or a unit to be studied. Instead it should be looked on as a lens, frame, or perspective for teaching throughout the day, across the curriculum, and perhaps beyond. What this means is that critical literacy involves having a critical perspective or way of being.”
Critical literacy is more important in digital spaces than anywhere else. However, there is a peculiar conflict here. As David Buckingham notes in his “Digital Media Literacies,” “pleasure, sensuality, and irrationality” are central aspects of how people — especially adolescents — engage with digital media (2007). The rationality of critical literacy does not seem to fit with this experience. It is for this reason that I argue we should think of critical literacy as a product of the practice of mindfulness.
Mindfulness, like any other word, has connotations.
Most people associate it with meditation, but it’s really a practice that can improve any part of life, including an adolescent’s digital experience. Critical literacy asks us to think of context, audience, one’s own assumptions, etc. This can be overwhelming, especially when one is online for pleasure, and especially when one is just getting out of the (benign) narcissism of childhood. Mindfulness merely asks us to notice. The good folks at mindful.org (2014) say it best:
“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”
The practice, when applied to critical literacy, reminds us to use all the parts of our brain — i.e. rationality and emotion, and notice how they are working together. Adolescents should use critically use digital media in the context of mindfulness in order to create for themselves safer and more fulfilling digital experiences.
A call for mindfulness is seen in chapter 8 of Julie Warner’s “Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones,” (2017) though she does not call it by that name. Warner introduces readers to the concept of the front end and back end of digital media spaces.
She argues that understanding that back end (i.e. code) is essential today; adolescents should learn to be producers rather than just consumers. While suggesting every person ought to code is a bit much, we can settle for being mindful that we do not understand the technology we possess. Critical literacy is about synthesizing information to gain understanding, and part of this with digital media is being aware that there is a lot going on that most of us will never understand. This understanding could work wonders to help people remember that their data is neither totally secure nor erasable.
In addition to this general knowledge of the limits of technology, there are other compelling reasons to encourage development of critical literacy. For example, scams have only become more common. In fact, they are so common that they can be placed into neat categories and explained by YouTubers.
Some are easier to spot than others, and generally the more sophisticated the scam, the more dire the consequences of falling for it. This is another situation in which paying close attention to all the factors, such as we learn from practicing mindfulness, can help a person. Further, once young people develop the critical literacy necessary to avoid being scammed, they can share this knowledge with others. Critical literacy is not the sort of thing to be hoarded, it is a tool that a person ought to use to improve the world around them.
Overall, while ‘critical literacy’ sounds dangerously similar to ‘critical thinking,’ it is truly something of substance. When thought of in the simple terms of mindfulness, it is a tool that can become part of an adolescent’s daily practice before they ever set foot in the ‘real world.’
Outside Resources
Mindful Staff. (2014, October 8).What is Mindfulness? Retrieved from https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/
ThioJoe. (2017, May 18). The Most Common Internet Scams! Watch Out! Retrieved from https://youtu.be/QcNdYAqnUmM
Vasquez, V. M. (2017, March). Critical Literacy. Oxford Research Encyclopedias. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.20
Required Readings
Buckingham, D. (2007). Digital Media Literacies: rethinking media education in the age of the Internet. Research in Comparative and International Education, volume 2 (issue 1).
Warner, J. (2017). Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones. New York: Peter Lang.
