Critical thinking is already taught. explicitly and fairly thoroughly, in many school systems, at least in the US. I've taught college-level critical-thinking classes myself. In my experience, students already have decent critical-thinking skills and are quite capable of exercising them.
The problem is when and whether they choose to do so.
I'd like to see more (methodologically-sound) research into what proportion of typical online consumers notice and understand these techniques, how well they understand them, and how they feel about them. For example, scarcity signalling can be useful information if 1) it's accurate and 2) the potential purchase in question is sufficiently sensitive to it (e.g. because it's an item that some task the buyer cares about depends on). So some consumers may approve of scarcity signalling on sites they afford some trust, particularly if they feel confident in their ability to weigh a scarcity signal rationally.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
