There is no second opinion to the point that the access to knowledge had never been as easy as it is today. We are in the era where ignorance is a choice, else there is availability of all kind of information we seek, just a click away.
There is no longer a need to travel miles of distances to reach a source of knowledge. We need not spend hours to excavate the pages of books in order to reach the desired information. We are not required to wait for a specific time to acquire the assistance we want. Digital tools via the route of internet are at our disposal all the time giving us a painless access to the knowledge.
Reflecting on my own learning experience, I am obliged to say I would not be as knowledgeable and skilled as I am today without the existence of internet in my life. There are a lot of dishes that I have learned to cook through content on internet. I owe my skills about baking to digitalization of information. I learned the basics of cutting and stitching dresses via YouTube videos. ChatGPT has come to my rescue when I needed immediate solution to something messed up. Currently, I am enrolled in an online Arabic learning course gaining insights of the language- a dream that has been with me for several years.
Looking at my routine and life circumstances, I believe, had I been in an era where internet was not easily accessible I would not be able to acquire the knowledge and skills I have. Thus, I must say the easy access of the knowledge has proved to be a blessing for me in various realms of my life equipping me with better skills, more growth opportunities, and wider horizons to explore. Nevertheless, my admiration for positive effect brought by the easy accessibility of knowledge in the present era does not blind me to the flip side of the coin. I have witnessed the negative effects too.
Especially in the form of short video content, the illusion of getting knowledge has brought devastating impact on our smartness and intelligence. By fostering the urge for instant gratification, instilling impatience and creating cognitive overload, this kind of content has compromised a lot of our emotional and intellectual abilities. Consuming this kind of content has found to be causing lack of self-control, problems in emotional regulation, poor time management and difficulty in maintaining focus.
The ability to think critically is also compromised as one does not get enough time to deeply process complex information. This has made us more gullible, believing fake information easily. I have found people trusting the information the authenticity of which is easily questionable. Here I must admit I am no exception.
Putting short video content aside, the constant bombardment of information causes difficulty in focusing on just one. I often find myself being tempted by the prompts of other videos or blogs while I am consuming one leading to distraction and making deep processing of information unlikely.
Moreover, I have noticed that the kind of information that most of us are consuming these days is superficial, and in an attempt to be more informed we keep on consuming more superficial knowledge.
Furthermore, the ease of publishing and sharing information has opened the doors of spreading fake and inaccurate content. Often, it becomes arduous to distinguish between the right and wrong, correct and incorrect, the truth and the falsehood.
So, if the question is whether the cheap and easy access of information has made us more knowledgeable than our ancestors, my answer would be yes. However, when it comes to smartness and intelligence, I believe our ancestors were as capable as the present generation. After all, these are their efforts and contribution that have brought us to the today’s Innovations and technology. But if the question is about wisdom, I feel it is becoming increasingly scarce in the modern times and the easy access of information is merely adding to this scarcity.
This post is my participation for Hl-featured contest week 150 edition 2
Image is created by me using Bing AI.