Easy Information Access Making People Dumb
In the current century, the measure of success is profound in so very many ways of the culture in existence. Chief among them is in the ease of access to information due to the emergence of technology. Technology is a broad term with a range of definitions, and so efforts herein will converge to point out the main culprit: the internet. Information access through the internet encompasses three different variations. The availability of necessitated information, granted access to the information required and supposed knowledge to understand are the three variations. A perfect blend of the three constitutes what ease of access to information spells out. The problem is, the internet as a whole makes light-weight of the three variations and hence the problem statement of easy access to information making people dumb.
Primarily, it is effortless to dismiss the internet as contributing less to the growth of the human mind. The most straightforward argument lies in claiming how it makes everything easier to access with internet access at the heart of almost every community the world over. However, when one chooses an objective point of view, the internet is the promised land. It is right in front of everyone, yet most never see it. It refers to the components that make up the internet. The internet comprises of raw and unlimited data in the form of images, videos, facts, and history in prose (Deniz & Geyik, 2015). All this at the fingertips is an outright key to actionable intelligence. Theoretically speaking, it means information men and women can use to make themselves more knowledgeable and be the outstanding supposed generation.
In reality, the opposite is exact. Besides being hooked on the wrong side of the internet corridors, human beings do not sift through the raw data unless they have to do it. Data collected on the internet is more valuable after social interaction. It refers to the rise to power of think-tank firms such as the recently disgraced Cambridge Analytica. It was a firm that grew in magnitude as a result of doing the work by taking advantage of the information on the internet about people. Everyone with an internet footprint means they interact a fair amount of time with the web, and all that interaction leaves a trace. It includes social media as well as money transactions as well as research activities. It is raw data that such companies use to their advantage in a humongous manner, insomuch as they can allegedly rig a presidential election.
The secondary approach is a more pragmatic stance on this topic, which states that access to the information through the internet is more or less a convenience. Without pointing fingers, the ability of the internet to access just about anything means the only advantage a library holds is the quiet and peaceful ambiance. The ease of information access has improved several critical factors in the lives of human beings. People make better decisions due to the power at their fingertips, whether it is a convenience in researching the best school to enroll one’s child or choosing which movie to see in theatres. With so much access, it is easier to reflect on the fundamental beliefs which one feels are critical to their way of life. Be it religious or moral, most of the time, the internet provides precedence, reassurance, and at times a challenge that fosters the initial belief or leads to one making a change. At times change appears inevitable, and the truth lies in the fact that without change, no growth occurs.
The problem is that whenever the opportunity arises to utilize these fundamentals the internet provides, people mostly disregard it and take the easy way out. Outsourcing is the way most individuals and organizations prefer to turn to save on time and money. The internet provides the needed information in the form of prior scenarios or, in other cases, scripted simulations of similar scenarios (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). These seem better than actually devoting resources to come up with something almost as identical. The choice to mindlessly follow the apparent option is only as human as it gets, and that is the dumb part of things. The notion germinates from the very illusion that exists and usually convinces everybody with access that these tools are to promote the knowledge levels of the people. However, the truth is that integrating all the available minuscule digital tools in the day to day lives of society means more dependency on these gadgets and less actual gain in intelligence.
In actuality, companies offering people the applications to have easy access to information reap a lot of benefits. A digital footprint, as aforementioned, exists for every interaction has with the internet. It means a bunch of zeroes and ones living in a vacuum whose access is for those with the will and ability. It is what creates jobs for firms willing to mine such and such information in search of actionable intelligence. Like the mining of actual gold happens in the South Africa quarries, finding something resourceful is a cash cow as it leads to the emergence of a trend worth capitalizing on for profits. It is evident in the ability of Google and other leading digital firms to be able to make a killing in the advertising business, coupled with the occasional fines for abusive practices in certain regions.
Of critical importance is the unique stance of technology, the internet per se, to everyone across the board. It has its advantages and disadvantages, and what one chooses to do with the ability to access it is entirely up to them. Ease of access to all that information means knowledge and empowering even the minds raised in the most humble of backgrounds. “Scientia potentia est” is the phrase coined by Francis Bacon, the philosopher, and it translates to knowledge is power (Zahller, 2011). It is this old idea that propels most of what is acceptable as intellectual. Here is a perspective that does not feature in most arguments and is yet the most crucial part about available information: granted access. Access simply refers to the ability to use or interact with or have entry to something. In this case, the ability to use, communicate and gain entry into the many platforms that are sources of information. It is an idea meant to broaden our views on what precisely this realm of data looks like theoretically speaking.
Modern-day reference to information access, especially with internet access, refers to the means to put it out there as well as consume what is out there. It points to a massive dimension with a porous boundary as to what leaks in to occupy the unending capacity within. This interpretation explains a domain that is ever-changing and continuously evolving in a bid to remain relevant. “The internet never forgets” is another one of those phrases concocted in recent times to refer to how difficult it is to permanently eliminate things with a digital footprint (V. Veretekhina, V. Krapivka & I. Kireeva, 2020). But is it a bad thing, considering how the early man documented their culture through art on rocks inside caves? With the current infinite canvas provided with ease of access, it should serve as a practical precondition to create analogically. Having the ability to consume means that there is as much the ability to create.
The best example of this microcosm of creation as well as consumption is on the Wikipedia website. The information is freely accessible and creates room for anyone who visits to be able to edit information available. More people go on the site to read other than write, but the fact that the freedom to do either exists means ease of access contribution does not just make people dumb. It involves trusting that individuals have a preconditioned understanding of their actions on such a domain. There will always be a few characters maliciously engaged in passing the wrong information. Still, the more significant majority pose a more mature audience, and with that, outweigh the disadvantage of making the website as open as it is. It is just one instance that proves people being dumb cannot be entirely blamed on easy access to information.
Another instance stands out in how smart folks are getting with the ease to access more information. The ability of individuals to specialize in specific areas is more accessible now, and it happens more steadily. Specialization, in a particular set of skills, means perfecting one’s ability to perform in a specific area of expertise. The sacrifice is that the same individuals end up missing out on other, possibly crucial survival skills. A brief example is when a student pursues a course in surgery, and they succeed in the long run, that means committing a lot of hours to emerge very skillfully in their field. It automatically rules out their ability to manually be able to grow their food. This shortcoming, however, is a plus for the people as a whole. It is because it increases dependence on each other as a community. It means it is empowering at both an individual and a collective level, a win-win situation for all.
In support of the problem statement here, the quote by Albert Einstein on this being an era when folks are genetically less intelligent than their ancestors due to the lifestyles of age. “I fear the day technology will surpass human interactions, and the world will have a generation of idiots,” Einstein said. Ease of access creates the possibility of an argument to ensure between an expert in the field of thermodynamics and a lad who just perused a few Wikipedia pages. One is an expert in the field while the other just picked up a few facts and yet onlookers would be mistaken to think of them both as experts. The truth lies in the simple fact that becoming an expert is very hard. Nobody wants to find themselves in a situation where they have to think critically and come up with answers on their own accord. With search engines and other applications just a click away, no one wants to think about other possibilities. It puts the blame squarely on the ease of availability of information using technology.
A different perspective puts the blame squarely in the court of all individuals, out of choice, or the means they acquire knowledge through. Nobel Prize laureate Daniel Kahneman’s prior studies into how the human mind thinks explain how technology is not to blame entirely. His theory characterizes the way the human brain works as a choice between two categories. The first is the natural, fast, and efficiency-oriented means to achieving the desired result. Herein, the process expects that things need to be automated, and the emergence of a pattern determines the end-result (Carter, 2012). It is what is promoted by the ease of access to data through platforms built on technology. The other category refers to the more traditional means of studying where people put in the work to gain knowledge cognitively. It means commitment and discipline in terms of effort and time without any short-cuts.
The part which undercuts technology developed is in the manner in its presentation as the more natural way out. Back in the day, before mobile phones came around, people used to commit the phone numbers of several people to memory contrary to today when even an emergency contact rarely pops to mind in times of crisis. In what today look like the “Google Effect,” people prefer to treat the ease of access to information as part of their existence. Having the answers at such proximity means storing information in our minds is redundant, more so with the advent of cloud storage. What is probably worse is that we are delighted not to save some of this crucial information to mind, and this raises questions as to how smart we are in the long-term. The truth is, the internet’s existence dawned in this century, but to imagine a world without it is unimaginable (Jaafar Desmal, 2017).
Marketability depends on proving to the masses how it makes their lives better (in the context of learning, how it makes things easier) so that the developers’ cash in on the opportunity. It is why Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are thriving today. These are the developments in our culture that promote category one of acquiring knowledge, which is making us less knowledgeable. Even though there are instances of technology tries to get it right, most of the time, its development is ostensibly not meant to make people more intelligent. The future remains bleak when we remain clueless about integrating technology and ways of acquiring new knowledge.
References
Carter, M. (2012). Review of Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, 27(2), 50-53. https://doi.org/10.5840/inquiryct201227212
Cascio, W. F., & Montealegre, R. (2016). How technology is changing work and organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3(1), 349-375. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062352
Deniz, M. H., & Geyik, S. K. (2015). Empirical research on general internet usage patterns of undergraduate students. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 895-904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.369
Jaafar Desmal, A. (2017). The impact of using social media and the internet on academic performance case study Bahrain universities. ICST Transactions on Scalable Information Systems, 4(13), 152748. https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.28-6-2017.152748
- Veretekhina, S., V. Krapivka, S., & I. Kireeva, O. (2020). Digital university, student ‘S digital footprint, digital education currency in the system of modern higher education. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, 24(03), 1878-1889. https://doi.org/10.37200/ijpr/v24i3/pr200936
Zahller, K. A. (2011). Scientia potentia Est: Organizational learning, absorptive capacity, and the power of knowledge. Information Systems Theory, 95-115. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9707-4_6