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The Problem with the Information Age

It never ceases to amaze me how far we would go to discredit certain things, especially what we do not agree with. Certain things are not a conspiracy, they are what they are.  We claim we are in the information age, and we can look up anything, yet we are always intrigued by an individual who would tell us about the conspiracy then we will pay this Individual to tell us something that we claim we can look up.

To say we are in the information age is a little problematic because the information has always been around. We had libraries, well we still have libraries……. It is just that the way information gets to us now is different, and faster,  we can have access to information at the speed of light, but this has also made us lazy to a point.

Well, let’s look at this from another point of view, in the late ’90s and 2000s, the internet became very common,. so it gave us access to information with lightning speed, for example, we don’t have to buy encyclopedias and arrange them in alphabetical order. We can just type in a few strokes and you have the information you are looking for. That being said the explosion of the internet made everyone an expert, suddenly everyone knows everything simply because they can look it up. People got lazy because people don’t conduct research anymore, The internet became a gospel, as wonderful as the internet is, there is a downside to it, especially youtube.

Youtube is a wonderful tool, and we all can learn a  lot, knowledge has become decentralized, and we all have learned something on youtube, (usually something we didn’t know before), and I for one support the decentralization and sharing of knowledge, the part where everyone has become some sort of expert is a little disturbing or certain people who have cult-like following even though what they are saying cannot authenticated, or even proven anywhere., we have people thinking more information makes people more intelligent, that is partially true because it always depends on what one is learning,  for example, if I have to fix something and have no idea on how to do it, I look on youtube and there is a video of how to do it, I have learned a new skill, but if someone says he has proof that the earth is flat, and then try to prove his point but regurgitating something he or she believed on the internet, that can be dangerous.  The interesting thing is that me learning how to fix something is practical knowledge, I can watch step by step how this person did what they did, it is not theory, I’m watching knowledge being applied but as mentioned above, how does anyone prove the earth is flat or the moon landing was fake, or going to space is impossible ??????

   To conclude this I think one of the skills we need to teach is how to learn, and how to conduct research, and the difference between both,  we also need to learn how to think critically about any new information we get, for example, back in the day a person needs to be alone with their thoughts in order to write poetry, a new song, a story, etc. To practice how to meditate and focus, we need to concentrate,  I think we need a little bit of that these days,  As the saying goes too much of everything is bad! we have all the information now, we should learn how to learn, and not follow blindly believe it or not learning is a skill.  

These days people confuse information for intelligence which is very dangerous!!!!!!

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Justin McCarty

    Hello,

    Wondering if you accept guest posts or link inserts on existing posts on selfequanimity.com?

    How much would you charge for this?

    Justin

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