Internet Reading
Major changes are afoot. They have been afoot for the last
twenty years. I'm talking about how we learn things, how we
read, how we do basic arithmetic and so on.
In high school, I used logarithm tables to work out results
in physics and chemistry experiments. Calculators were not
allowed. Though inconvenient, this practice honed my
arithmetic skills -- skills that calculators and
spreadsheets have eroded by now.
Similar erosion is taking place in our reading skills as
well. We don't read to retain information or knowledge any
more. We search, scan, locate keywords, browse and
bookmark. The Internet is doing to our reading habits what
the calculator did to our arithmetic abilities.
Easy access to information is transforming our notion of
(dare I say, respect for?) knowledge in a fundamental way.
In a knowledge economy, knowledge is fast becoming a cheap
commodity. We don't need to know stuff any more; we just
need to know how to find it.
I was talking to a lecturer the other day. According to
him, a good lecturer is not the one who knows most and has
a deep understanding of the subject, but the one that can
locate the answer the fast.
The power of instant information came with the Internet,
which made experts of all of us. We can now make
intelligent comments and informed decisions on anything.
Suppose, for instance, your child's doctor recommends the
procedure "myringotomy," quite possibly something you have
never heard of before. But you can Google it, read (sorry,
browse) the first couple of search results, and you will
know the rationale behind the doctor's advice, the exact
procedure, its risk factors and benefits, and so on. In ten
minutes, you will know what took the doctor years of hard
work to learn.
This easy access to knowledge may, quite mistakenly,
diminish your respect for the medical degree. This
diminished reverence for knowledge is both unwise; a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing. A doctor's expertise is not
so much in memorizing a webpage worth of information, but
also in knowing all the special circumstances where that
information doesn't apply. Besides, the webpage you
happened to read may be just plain wrong. We should be
careful not to mistake easy information for deep knowledge.
Let's guard our respect for true knowledge and wisdom
despite our access to ready information.
Such misguided lack of respect is evident in the workplace
as well, where managers think they can always hire
specialized knowledge at will. I had a friend who was
planning to roll out a product using Bluetooth, back when
it was an emerging technology. I pointed out the obvious
flaw in his proposal -- he didn't know much about
Bluetooth. His reply was, "No big deal! I'll just hire
somebody who does!"
My worry is, when everybody wants to hire a Bluetooth
expert and nobody wants to know how it works, there won't
be an expert any longer.
Knowledge is not cheap, although our easy access to it
through the Internet may indicate otherwise. When we all
become users of information, our knowledge will stop at its
current level, because nobody will be creating it any more.
We are not there yet, but I worry that we are heading that
way. I worry about the support structure of our knowledge
base. How will our knowledge empire stand when all its
foundations are gone?
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