Three Questions with Meghann Koppele Duffy

Episode 29 - Critical Thinking in the Age of Information Overload

• Meghann • Episode 29

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Is your brain exhausted from trying to keep up with all the information coming at you?

In this episode of Three Questions, I dive into the three questions regarding critical thinking because in an age of nonstop content, it’s not just what you think that matters, but how you think.

We’ll unpack why so many of us feel mentally overloaded, what it means to challenge your own beliefs without judgment, and how to find common ground even when opinions clash.

In this episode you’ll hear:
 ✅ Why “information overload” can lead to shallow learning and cognitive fatigue
 ✅ How to ask questions that lead to understanding, not arguments
 ✅ Why it’s okay to stay quiet until you’ve actually thought something through

Whether you’re a coach, teacher, or someone who’s trying to stay curious in a noisy world, this episode will help you slow down, challenge your assumptions, and think with more intention (and a little more grace).

Resources mentioned:
Episode 28: Weight Loss: What the Billion-Dollar Industry Doesn’t Want You Questioning
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Connect with me on Instagram
Connect with me on Threads

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and deeper understanding. Hey, I'm your host Meghann, and I'm so honored you clicked on today's episode of Three Questions to talk about critical thinking. It's kind of funny, I realized in doing all these episodes I never really broke down and talked about critical thinking. Here I am asking you all to be critical thinkers and forcing myself to be a more critical thinker, but I thought it deserved an episode. So let's get into it and think about what does it mean to be a critical thinker and how can we do better and also cut ourselves some slack in the process.

So question one, my friends is asking ourselves. What do I believe? And where did that come from? Now that's a really vague question because there are so many topics, and in this era of social media, there is a lot of information coming at us at all times. Um, I almost kind of miss, I feel like I officially sound old.

Back when I was a kid, you know, you kind of didn't have all this information all the time. Now I can argue both sides of that conversation, which is a strategy. I used to critical think there are benefits to having more information, but there are disadvantages. For example, there's the information, information processing theory.

And this was super interesting. I, I even wrote myself a note. Um.

Is, and the note says, Meg, this is a huge problem. That was the note I wrote to myself, and it's when our brain is filtering and getting all this information, it can store a lot of information, but it gets overloaded. And when it gets overloaded, that can lead to cognitive fatigue, stress, and shallow learning.

So not deep critical thinking and learning. So. Ah, why I bring this up is I see a lot of people like critiquing teachers in schools and saying, there's no critical thinking anymore. Well, because kids nowadays are bombarded with so much information, their brains have to take in all this information, and they have to have an opinion on everything since when do we have to be experts and an opinion on everything?

So right off the bat. I wanna give us all a little bit gr grace to not be an expert at everything. To be okay to say, Hey, I'm not really familiar with this topic. Tell me what you think. Ask more questions and ask people questions in a way that you want to learn, not out of judgment. And I catch myself doing this all the time.

It is like, don't look for the gotcha moment or No, no, no. I don't wanna agree with you first. I try to look for common ground. So when I'm asking a question or listening to somebody's podcast or Instagram posts first, what I like to do is usually, I'll be honest, I usually get annoyed about something 'cause that's me.

But then I'm like, all right, hold on. What are two things we agree with? Boom. And boom. Okay, well what is it that I actually disagree with them about? Or is it just, I'm not letting them finish their thought. Okay. And what I often ask myself is, can I learn from this situation so I don't have to agree with that person?

But what can I learn from this interaction? Well, if I can understand their beliefs and mine, maybe I can kind of understand why they got to that conclusion. And for me, then I can better explain it in my words. Okay, so when we're doing this process of critical thinking, and I, I said it in a few podcast episodes.

I didn't wanna say it in everyone, but you are a hundred percent allowed to disagree with me a hundred percent. That's not what this podcast is about. I actually want you to think about these questions. I would love for you to argue both sides of the conversation, right. So ask yourself, why do I believe this and where did that come from?

Well, it might be like we just, I just did an episode about weight loss. Now, I think prior to having somebody close in my life have success with a GLP one, I probably had some judgment about it prior 'cause I didn't really fully understand it. Okay. It was marketed something different. But for this specific person, it was very helpful for their health issues.

So now I have my beliefs about those medications. And where do my beliefs come from? Well, my understanding of science, so I did a lot of research on the GLP ones. I wanted to understand what is the mechanism, how does it work, what are potential side effects? And when I look at potential side effects, I look at those side effects.

And you know what I think. Okay. Why is nausea one of them? Why is this one of them? The reason being is I wanna understand why it could cause that, because if somebody's having a side effect, maybe why they, why they're taking the GLP one isn't the problem. It's something else causing that. That's kind of how my brain works, but also my personal experience is going to guide my belief system like it or not.

Now we don't know long-term effects of anything. Right? I have a lot of opinions about Botox. My opinions are based off long-term. I also work with cranial nerves and facial expression and work with people, a lot of migraines and stuff like that. And my issue is not that they're getting Botox to get rid of wrinkles.

I have zero judgment there. Okay. I'm 43. I have wrinkles. I'm going to get more when I have a lot more. I'm sure I am sure as hell gonna have a different opinion about it, but what I'm looking from is a movement and how it's affecting vision, vestibular system, and proprioception. Because my job is to get people moving better and to deal with these major health issues.

So although it is fixing one problem, it could be causing another. So my belief system is built off my personal experience, the science behind it, but also with room for wiggle room, because I have a rule. Don't judge anything. 'cause you never know what you're gonna do, right? So think about you guys. Where do your beliefs come from?

Were you brought up a certain way? Are your beliefs the opposite of the way you were brought up because there was negative aspects of that? Maybe there was some trauma,

and I'm sorry if there was, in any aspect of your life, that is definitely going to affect your belief system. My mother and I agree on so much, but we disagree on a lot. One of my favorite things is my mom and I can have very deep argument. She actually listens better than I do. I'm working on it. Don't tell her I said that.

She doesn't really listen to the podcast. My sister Kimberly does. Kim, don't you tell her I said that, but we always get to an understanding. But my mother grew up very differently than I did. Okay. Not gonna share my mother's background. It's nobody's business, but she grew up very differently than I did, so it's very easy to judge her belief system when I didn't have to walk in her shoes.

Right. So I want you to kind of take away from this question, what do we believe and where did that come from, and are we holding onto that and not able to see outside of that? Yeah, sometimes. And maybe we have to, I don't know. So if you're in this situation where you find your beliefs are really strong about something.

I'm not gonna tell you to change that. So what I'm gonna encourage you to do is find at least two things you have in common with the other side, because I think I talk to a lot of people, a lot of different clients from all over the world. Okay? And what I honestly observe is so many people ag agree more than they disagree.

And I have two clients I can think of. Oh my God, they have such different opinions like. The epitome of this end of the spectrum and that, and they literally are saying the same things, but with totally different words. Right? But I don't think either one of them could even hear the other one. And I'm not blaming them.

It's just an observation. So question two, you're not gonna like this one always. Question two, I piss you off a little bit, but I'm gonna come back around in question three, I hope Is, are you and I. Seeking information that challenges us or agrees with us. That question had no judgment. If you took it that way, that's on you, not me.

Now, we could argue this both ways. Do we always need to challenge ourselves? I mean, can we just live sometimes? Sure, a hundred percent. But I do believe it's important to seek information that challenges us. It's hard. I don't like it. Okay. And we've got, I've got another theory I wrote down for you.

There's so many behavior theories and I'm not good at memorizing, so I wanted to make sure I got the name right. Cognitive dissonance theory. So that's when people hold conflicting beliefs or behaviors, they experiencing psychological discomfort. And guess what their goal is? They seek to resolve it.

People don't like to be uncomfortable. I get that. Except for my husband. He loves. Situations when other people are uncomfortable. I'm not gonna share the full story, but I didn't realize that one of his, uh, family members had, um, different beliefs than the majority of us on certain things. I had no idea, I didn't even realize this was a family member.

And I said something and he stood and just let me bury myself and thought it was hysterical. It wasn't that bad. Um, but. He loves when other people are in uncomfortable situations. It's, um, it's something endearing about him, but also makes kind of awful when you think about it. So it's okay to not always seek to be challenged, but I encourage you to do it.

It's super uncomfortable, but it can help you get to a deeper understanding and look at it this way. You don't have to agree with people, but the worst thing that'll ha the hold on, best case scenario. Or worst case scenario, depending on how you look at it, you get really challenged with your beliefs and it reinforces your beliefs, but you figure out a better way to explain it to others and be clear about your communication.

I love that for you. Or maybe you'll change your mind on something because someone presented it in a way that you're like, oh my God, I never thought of it that way. Now, question three is what I wanna spend the most time on in this episode.

I notice and I catch myself doing it. Uh, the previous episode, the weight loss episode, I got about halfway through the episode, and then I shut it off and redid it. The reason I did that is I felt like I was sharing somebody else's story too much. I felt like I was crossing a line, even though I didn't say their name.

I felt. That I had crossed a line using somebody else's experience to express something I believed in. So rather than just saying, this is what I think I kind of leaned into, well, I think this because of this person's story, and I believe that's because there is a little bit of fear for people. And I'm not even gonna answer the cancel culture shit.

Okay. I think as humans sometimes we are afraid of expressing what we truly believe out of fear or confusion. So sometimes we might have an opinion that's not popular or something we're afraid to say because we think it's going to be misconstrued in a way. Now doing a podcast, this is not a dialogue.

Unfortunately, if I say something that lands wrong. You could get pissed off, but that's on you. If you decide based off one thing I say that you know my intentions and who I am as a person that's super egotistical of you. Shouldn't we give people the luxury of explaining their intention without assuming it?

You really don't know a ton about me because I'm a pretty private person. Okay? Now I share things when appropriate. Okay. I don't feel that people have a right to all of my life. That's my life. I don't feel like I have the right to your life either. Something I learned from my mother is why would you ask questions that aren't your business?

You know, listen, sometimes we get caught up in, oh my God, those people are getting divorced. I wanna learn more. Um, something I learned from my mother, one of the things I admire her the most is she's. Does not gossip. Like what's wrong with you mom? And you know, she had a situation where, you know, if you tell her something, she won't tell.

She doesn't ask follow up questions, which I thought, I first was like, don't you, why aren't you asking follow up questions? 'cause she goes, it's none of my business. If they want to tell me something, they will. Asking follow up questions to her was rude and it just made me think. Because I always ask follow up questions, and sometimes it's like, oh, why are you asking that question?

Are you seeking knowledge from that person or to get them know better? Or are you seeking gossipy information? Right? So I think for all of us, we are allowed to share what we want. I find if you are not sure about your opinion, just stay quiet on it. I unfortunately feel in this social media environment, everybody has to have an opinion on everything.

I don't have strong opinions on everything because in my life I don't have enough experience or knowledge to make a statement about that. Now, while there might be personal things that affect me, I don't think it's fair to put on a statement on something that I am not an expert or my opinion doesn't actually matter right now.

You could totally disagree. That's fine. I think it's okay to stay quiet if you don't know how you truly feel, and instead be self-reflective. Ask more questions. Seek information that challenges you. Now, please don't understand. I'm not telling you to put your head in the sand. That is not what I mean for me.

I'm all about constant learning and growth. I like to learn something new every day, and it could be something stupid like why dogs go in a circle to poop. Like that kind of stuff is interesting to me. Fun facts. Okay? So think about when you're talking to people, don't be afraid to express your opinion and ask them, Hey, here's where I'm sitting on this.

What do you think about that? So even if they might be like, Meg, I totally disagree with you on that. Can you tell me why? I'd love to hear your opinion on that. I think it then opens up a dialogue for critical thinking, and that's kind of why I did this whole podcast, um, through learning different education models and writing a textbook on movement education models is I just keep getting drawn back to Socrates.

And the thing that I loved was he was like, I don't know everything. There's a lot more that I don't know that I do. And he probably liked being the teacher, being the one talking. I mean, I do, and he said something he observed was that a lot of people talk, but when you ask them further questions, there's no meat behind it.

And my takeaway is not that socr, he thought people were stupid. He just wanted people to have a deeper understanding. And I say this with my students. I call it word salad. They'll use all these fancy movement terminology. We see this in all industries, right? Teachers do it, lawyers do it, doctors do it.

Movement. Pros do it. Aren't, we use this jargon or terminology, but then when you ask them further, they're like, I don't know what that actually means. I had a big debate with a student. I was like, well, why did you do that? Pick that a ball between your legs. And she said to me, well, 'cause I, I, that would improve their pelvic stability.

I was like, why? What's unstable about their pelvis? But because Pilates teachers use pelvic stability so much. She kind of just used that word when I said, maybe that's actually not what your intention was. It was to better stabilize their hip joint and that that cue that you gave might have actually put them in a gripping pattern or it could have stabilized their hips.

But I wanted to have a deeper conversation of, tell me why you did it. Not because I wanted to make her feel stupid or silly, or not knowledgeable. I wanted to push her to have a deeper understanding because when she understands what she's doing. She'll be able to apply it to every client she sees and she'll be, be better able to explain it to clients.

So I love that. Something, Socrates, the one thing I have in common with Socrates that kind of sounded egotistical, but I'm gonna go there, is I myself, whenever I'm writing a social media post or anything, it's like, what do I actually mean here? Is there jargon in there? And it becomes more conversational.

And let me tell you, a lot of people have underestimated me, me underestimated me in my life because I lead with humor. I don't talk with big words. They don't know my level of education. It happened to me in school too. I'll never forget when my mom had to go in. I placed into gifted and talented, whatever the hell it was called, and they said that Meghann wouldn't be able to handle it.

And my mom goes, why? Well, because she's always joking around and you know, I don't think cognitively, she's ready. And my mom says, well then you don't know my daughter. Right? I choose to, this is who I am. I don't have to prove to you I'm smart. Don't care. Okay. But in that people have underestimated me. And guess what I do?

I let 'em, it's so fun. And then they're like, ah. That's you, da da. I'm like, mm-hmm. Moving on. And then I remember because somebody who underestimates other people is not someone I want in my orbit. 'cause if they do it to me, they do it to a lot of other people. Okay. So going back to Socrates, how can we all be more like Socrates?

Asking more questions, listening more. It's so freeing. And guys, if you're nervous about saying the wrong thing, why are you nervous? Maybe what you're saying you shouldn't say then if you're afraid it's gonna upset somebody, why would you wanna say that? Now, if it's a true belief, well maybe think about, put yourself in that other person's shoes.

Fine. Two things you have in common, and then figure out a way to explain it in a way that won't be hurtful to them. I mean, you can, you can't protect people's feelings, but I always laugh when people are like, well, I don't wanna offend anybody. I'm like, well, why do you think what you're gonna say is going to be offensive?

Is it offensive? Well, okay, then why are you saying it?

I don't get that. That's me. My opinion. What do I say? Opinions are like buttholes. I put in opinions in this podcast and you're allowed to disagree with them. So let's circle this up. I want this to be a short one because I want you to give you guys time to self-reflect on this. When we're looking to critically think, a strategy I use is trying to argue both sides of the argument.

So say, I have this belief system, what does the alternative use say? Why do they say that? Where are they coming from there? Okay, so finding two things you have in common can help you understand their argument. From there, you don't have to agree with them. You don't have to change your mind. You could understand them better and move on, or you can use it to strengthen your argument or belief.

So we're always questioning, why do I believe this? Where is it coming from? I realized most recently, I can't remember what podcast it was. Something about we training. Now my exercise science undergrad and masters were in 2004 and 2006, I realized, I was like, hold, I gotta check to see if this research that created my belief pattern is still valid.

Right? I, I remembered years ago we, in college, we were talked, um, uh, doms, delayed muscle onset of muscle soreness was due to lactic acid. They have disproven that, even though I still see people saying it, it was disproven. In research. So don't, you know, say if we say something wrong, it's like, oh my God, I didn't realize that happened.

Oh, thank you so much for telling me. Right? So I always like to go back and see is where did that belief come from and has things changed, right? Number two, am I at a place I use Go and Flow with movement? Are you in a place of go where you're ready to learn something? You need a new movement pattern?

You're ready? Or you in a state of flow where you're like, I'm, I'm just trying to live here. I don't need anything new. Well, think about that with social media. Maybe right now you are trying to find people that agree with you to get more data, to get more research, to get more opinions. But I would encourage you to also look at things that challenge you.

It's only gonna help you be a better communicator and a more well-rounded thinker. You don't have to agree with people something. Again, I've done episodes where I quote my dad a lot. This is gonna be MO'S episode. My mom's name is Maureen. My mom is something she always says, number one, agree to disagree.

Agree to disagree. I love that. And when you annoy her or you disagree and she doesn't like you, she sticks her tongue out at you. She used to give the finger, but my nephew Anthony, was like, mom, mom, that's not nice. And she would do it. Kind of half kidding. But now she does the tongue out. So you don't always have to agree with people.

You can agree to disagree. And you can also say, I don't want that information right now. And last but not least, please do not be fearful of sharing your opinions. If you are fearful, I want you to think about why are you fearful of sharing that opinion? Is it offensive? Is it accurate? Is it hurtful? Does it need to be said?

If it does, then sit with it, understand the other side, and communicate it in a way where you can be clear. Also, if you hear somebody say something. That is really jarring to you. I'll quota, I think Bill Burr said this, if it's still bothering you in five days, I'll talk about it. If it's not, let's move on.

Okay. Sometimes in the heat of the movement, we get angry about things, but think about why it's bothering you and then communicate that better. And also, guys, this is my opinion. It's okay to stay quiet about things. You don't have a strong belief system or you're unsure about. I think maybe more of us could do that rather than saying something and shooting from the hip.

It's a rule of thumb. I do when I write emails. When I write an email that is emotional, I always save it as a draft and I wait 24 hours before I'm gonna send it. Because we've all done this, we've sent an emotional email and. Later on, it's either misconstrued or it wasn't actually what we felt and it bites us in the butt.

Okay. So I know this episode was a little different. I might have sound like I was a little lecturing more, or maybe I always sound that way. I don't know. But I really wanna encourage you guys, and I, I thought doing this episode was really interesting for me too. Um, because it's important to question our beliefs and where they come from.

And be okay to change our minds too. That's kind of the hardest part. It's okay to be wrong. I am all about making mistakes. It's part of the neuroscience and stuff that I do. Mistakes are the best way to learn. However, if you keep making the same mistake, you are not learning. You're digging your heels in.

So I hope this episode resonated and I hope you got some ahas in it, and I would love to hear. How you try to critically think better in your life. Thanks guys. I'll see you next time. 

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