Articles by Contributor,Lisa Bodell

Technology

The Power Of Reflection: Critical Thinking In The Age Of Echo Chambers

Other fields have mastered reflection. Athletes dissect plays. Writers revise drafts. Physicians analyze outcomes. But in business, we leap from task to task. Why? Because busyness looks like progress. iStock, Liubomyr Vorona A few months ago, I was running from one client meeting to the next. I was on back-to-back Zooms, prepping a keynote deck, recording courses and trying to respond to a dozen emails in between. And on top of that, both my children were graduating, and I was moving. At one point, I realized I had completely forgotten who I was talking to. Mid-sentence, I blanked. Was I speaking to the tech startup about strategic simplicity… or the pharmaceutical team about innovation culture? I smiled, responded to their questions, and wrapped it up. But after I closed the call, I sat there thinking: This isn’t sustainable. I’m reacting, but am I actually thinking anymore? The issue was: I had doing time, but I didn’t have enough thinking time. In our drive to move fast, check boxes, and stay ahead, we often forget the one thing that keeps us sharp: time to think. And without it, we’re not just tired, we’re ineffective. We live in an echo chamber. And we built it ourselves. We live in an age of instant replies, generative content, and algorithmic echo chambers. Our obsession with speed, productivity, and the convenience of artificial intelligence is eroding something essential: our ability to pause, think critically, and reflect. In our relentless drive to ‘do’, we’ve forgotten how to discern. But real learning, real growth-it doesn’t happen in the doing alone. It happens in the reflecting. In his book How We Think (1910), philosopher John Dewey emphasizes that mere experience is insufficient for learning. He argues that for an experience to be educational, it must be reflected upon. MORE FOR YOU “We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.” Why Reflection is the Key to Growth. And Survival Reflection isn’t a luxury. It’s a survival skill in today’s overwhelming information ecosystem. It’s how we separate noise from signal. In a world where AI can generate infinite answers, we need the human wisdom to ask the right questions. “Reflection is not optional. It’s essential, “ says Sanyin Siang, a Duke University professor who leads its Coach K Leadership & Ethics Center at the Fuqua School of Business. “In a world of instant answers and endless input, reflection is the pause that parses the trivial from the significant, surfaces questions, and asks us to sit with our emotions. That is a pathway to wisdom. Without it, we risk outsourcing not just our thinking, but our humanity.” Yet in workplaces fixated on speed and outputs, reflection is treated like a detour. It’s quiet. Invisible. And that’s precisely why it’s overlooked. But to ignore reflection is to risk becoming reactive instead of intentional, robotic instead of insightful. In fact, failing to reflect is one of the reasons critical thinking is deteriorating. A recent study highlighted that increased AI use is linked to the erosion of critical thinking skills (Phys.org, 2025). Another study conducted by researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University surveyed 319 professionals who regularly use generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot. The findings revealed that 40% of participants reported using no critical thinking whatsoever during AI-assisted tasks. This suggests that while AI can enhance efficiency, it may also lead to diminished critical engagement in the workplace. Cognitive offloading, our tendency to let tech think for us, is leading to intellectual complacency. The faster we move, the less deeply we think. The less time to think we take, the more we rely on others, or machines, to do it for us. Echo Chambers and the Illusion of Thinking One of the most dangerous outcomes of this trend is the rise of the echo chamber, where we engage only with content that mirrors our own beliefs, magnified and reprocessed through algorithms or AI tools. When generative AI is trained on our own ideas, we end up recycling perspectives rather than expanding them. Take the example from the New York Times' recreation of Elon Musk’s Twitter feed. The interactive piece shows how algorithmic bubbles can create drastically different realities, depending on who or what we follow. The consequence? We stop thinking critically and start absorbing passively. Reflection is the antidote. It forces us to pause. To question. To take the time to think. To ask: Is this true? What are the alternatives? Why do I believe this? How can I think outside the prompt box? Reflection in Business: A Missing Practice Other fields have mastered reflection. Athletes dissect plays. Writers revise drafts. Physicians analyze outcomes. But in business, we leap from task to task. Why? Because busyness looks like progress. But without reflection, there is no learning. Just repetition. And it comes at a cost. Shallow decisions. Mistakes repeated. Teams misaligned. Innovation stalled. Yet there’s a strong business case for reflection. A Harvard Business School study found that employees who spent just 15 minutes a day reflecting improved performance by 23% in only 10 days. Reclaiming Reflection: Practical Strategies Innovative outcomes begin with taking the time to think. Reintroducing reflection into the workplace and our lives doesn’t have to be difficult. It starts with intention. 1. Make Reflection Routine Embed structured reflection into your day or workflow: Use After-Action Reviews to assess project outcomes. Introduce journaling into training sessions. Ask: What worked? What didn’t? What will I do differently next time? 2. Build a Culture of Thoughtfulness Reflection flourishes when it’s modeled from the top: Leaders should share their own lessons learned regularly. Foster team check-ins that go beyond metrics. Focus on insights, missteps, and learnings. Reward curiosity and questioning, not just results. Celebrate mistakes. Tired of trudging through project post mortems? Turn them into celebrations of initiative. How do we take what we learned from success AND failure and apply it to the next big thing? 3. Use Technology as a Tool, Not a Crutch Tech can enable reflection, but it shouldn’t replace it: Create team spaces on Slack or Notion for documenting lessons learned. Use survey tools not just to collect data, but to spark discussion. More importantly, don’t let AI replace your thinking. As Vox warns, outsourcing mental effort to technology deconditions our brains. If we want to stay sharp, we must use our minds—even when machines offer quicker solutions. The best technology still cannot replicate the value of a human with the courage to take time to think. It might be able to run twice as fast as you walk, but it’s still just a tool, not a crutch. A Call to Reflect, Before We Forget How In a world of infinite speed and content, reflection is radical. It slows us down on purpose. But slowing down isn’t falling behind. It’s preparing to move forward with clarity. Let’s not become passive consumers in a world of infinite content. Let’s become discerning thinkers, reflective leaders, and intentional learners. Because without reflection, we’re just spinning our wheels in an algorithmic fog. But with it? We reclaim our ability to lead with purpose, think with clarity, and grow with integrity. It’s time we reclaimed something simple, profound, and powerful: our time to think. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions