As peculiar as it may seem, despite today’s access to large quantities of information and the booming of technology, we are no more informed than earlier generations. In fact, this abundance of information has not helped us at all, but rather has obstructed our quest for knowledge all together. Instead, what seems like a clear advantage has transformed into an outlet for distraction and laziness.
Rather than making use of the copious amount of scholarly and factual information available to us, we have chosen to escape into the encompassing realms of social media, nestling ourselves within the “mindless” news.
However, it makes sense. In a culture swarming with all kinds of gadgets, it is oftentimes hard not to get lost in the virtual world of entertainment. Between Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, we’ve lost all interest in the events that are changing and shaping our world, choosing instead to escape into the lives of our friends, role models and celebrities.
In terms of current events and politics, today’s generation seems to be severely lagging. Pew Research’s “news IQ” quizzes have found that the public continues to struggle with many basic facts about politics and current events. According to their most recent knowledge quiz, only 33 percent knew that there are three women on the Supreme Court – Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Furthermore, advancements in technology have not only provided us with ongoing distractions, but have allowed us to become lazy. In the past, children had to go to the library, open a book and read an actual published text in order to learn about a particular subject. This process could actually be classified as “research” as they would slowly gather information and learn throughout the course of exploring their topic.
Today however, we are no longer forced to do research, but rather engage in mindless clicking. Carelessly scrolling through pages of search engines, we look for bold terms to pop out and provide us with instantaneous “knowledge.”
Unfortunately, however, just as quickly as we can type in Harriet Tubman and find a paragraph detailing her life, this information can vanish from our minds. Thus, as ironic as it sounds, today's access to “instantaneous” knowledge is doing nothing but slowing us down, making whatever we just learned all the more forgettable.
In fact, Harvard professor Cass R. Sunstein illuminates
this very notion: “Because information can be obtained or shared in an instant, the cost of getting knowledge is at an all-time low.”
