Nowadays many people use the expressions "I think" and "I feel" as equivalents. The expression "I think" is rational and logical, while "I feel" is emotional. Both expressions are acceptable and even complementary, as long as thinking is not confused with feeling. The latter usually happens when thinking is affected by an emotional charge that detracts from its rigor and objectivity.

Lately, there has been a proliferation of students who shy away from the activity of thinking, expressing their ideas not through the cognitive route, but through the affective one. This alteration often has worrying consequences, such as, for example, reactive responses that are alien to rational and voluntary behavior; rationalization of desire (they invent "reasons" in the direction marked by desire); the feeling of the moment as the only criterion for decision making.

Today's young people defend themselves against their passive mental attitude by claiming that thinking is a source of problems: it produces chronic fatigue, complicates their quiet life and gives them a bad image in the group of friends, where they are seen as presumptuous "Pythagoreans".

The testimony of Professor Jaime Nubiola corroborates the existence of this mentality in quite a few students: "Many even remember that on the occasions when they set out to think they experienced suffering or loneliness and are now reproached. It is not worth thinking," they say, "if it requires so much effort, causes anguish and, in the end, separates us from others. Better to live from day to day and have as much fun as one can." 

The students' stance of giving up their own ideas in order to save themselves trouble and succeed is often maintained in the quest era of employment. A humorous vignette by Quino about an interview of work reflects this brilliantly:

"-And you, young man, do you possess ideas of your own?

- No, no, I rent.

-Great, because we don't want any surprises here."

These young people are not aware that they are being influenced by the "culture" of postmodernism, which values feeling over reason and the useful over the true. They are also often affected by the subculture of hedonistic instantaneity (polarization in the pleasurable instant) in which there is no room for the effort of thinking.

To these influences is added the myth of spontaneism. Spontaneous behavior would be natural and sincere behavior, while non-spontaneous behavior would be artificial and deceitful. This ignores the fact that spontaneity is often a precipitated behavior in which reflection is absent.

The habit of not thinking denotes a mental laziness that is growing as audiovisual technology advances, especially when used abusively and indiscriminately.

Young and not so young, we run the risk of being reduced to mere receptive elements of information, without the attitude to question it and without the disposition to increase creative thinking. We are getting used to mechanically repeating what the Internet says, without analyzing or contrasting it.

Professor Nubiola adds that behind the attitude of Withdrawal to think on one's own account is "a notoriously superficial and ephemeral youth lifestyle and an enemy of all commitment. Young people do not want to think because thought always demands a response staff, a commitment that they are only rarely willing to make.

The problem would be less of a problem if thinking were taught in all schools. Possessing such learning would help students to counteract the environmental influences that push them to mental passivity. I suggest a goal that seems fundamental to me: that schools promote active, open-minded learners who are able to think critically.

True thinking involves dialogue with oneself and with others. Dialogue is a game of questions and answers; it requires learning to ask, learning to listen and learning to respond.

It is very important to encourage the attitude of questioning in the family and at school from an early age, and that it is reciprocated by patient responses from parents and teachers. To omit them would be to kill the nascent curiosity and predisposition to think. An example: "kid, stop with your whys and play a video game!".

Along with questioning, there are other means to learn to think: problem solving; the use of some intellectual work techniques such as, for example, the elaboration of schemes and concept maps; the use of participatory methodology (mainly guided discussion and discussion).

It would stimulate young people to know that those who think on their own make more discoveries, become freer and less manipulable.