Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Message Boards, Comment Threads, etc etc.
There are so many ways to have group discussions these days that don't actually need any people to be present in the same room. The Internet has become a debate forum, a recipe swap, a book club, a movie critic haven, food experts and a host of other topics. With things like Google available, people can access information on absolutely anything and find some pretty sound information if they are diligent. Therein lies the problem. What we have is a bunch of people who all have the same access to the same information, so we have a bunch of experts a variety of things and sometimes the source of the information becomes a bigger problem than the original debate topic. Oddly enough, this isn't even the biggest issue.
The biggest problem with social media and search engines is that there are some people, generally adolescents and young adults who believe that this fingertip distance information makes up for the experiences that life gives you. A perfect example is a friend who loves to discuss what they learned in school. Now, it's hard for me to argue with what this individuals professors are teaching by saying it's wrong, but I can say, based on my experience that these facts tend to change. If I hear something and know it's changed five or six times and this person does not, due to lack of age, how can I convince them, because for most of their life it's been true.
Another issue is tests. Good fucking lord do we love tests. You know why we love tests? Frankly, it's a bit of a god complex brings us such pleasure. We take great pleasure in knowing that we scored better than others. Maybe it's 93% of the country or maybe it's 97% or maybe even 99%, who knows? You know why this doesn't matter? The next time a teen or young adults tells you how well they scored on something, ask them how hard a punch they can take? I know what you're thinking. What a jerk! But really, they have this vast wealth of knowledge, but do they know everything? In one single question, you baffle them, scare the shit out of them and prove, in most cases, that there is always something people don't know.
I'm not saying tests don't prove some ability to solve problems and we do call that intelligence, but I've seen rocket scientists try and build a tree house and look as silly as a baby trying to put the round block in the square hole. The problem is that with the Internet, all these young people think this matters. What you see is a lot of them spouting off about something based on one item of information, not realizing there might be a history of events leading up to this point.
So what is the endgame? There is going to come a time, when people who gained most of their knowledge before the advent of the Internet, decide to turn on those who didn't. It's up to the parents of these children to teach them, that it's not always the right thing to argue with people who might have a vast personal knowledge of something, that you can't find in books. A perfect example was a child who posed a question based on an article and then got annoyed when I debated the validity of the article based on much more empirical information than a bunch of numbers that were crunched. The problem with numbers as anyone can tell you from debating me, is that they can very easily be manipulated to say whatever you wish. Trust me, it's not difficult, as long as you have the correct data. Joey punching you dead in the face however, well you won't find a true description of how that feels in any book. Having your heart broken, doesn't quite fall in line with statistics on dating or how it's described in romance novels. Oh and sunsets, yeah, there's a scientific reason for that and not one person who has a heart or an imagination give a single fuck why and doesn't want to hear about how you got a 93% on a test that asked it. Trust me, I'm old. I know.
There are so many ways to have group discussions these days that don't actually need any people to be present in the same room. The Internet has become a debate forum, a recipe swap, a book club, a movie critic haven, food experts and a host of other topics. With things like Google available, people can access information on absolutely anything and find some pretty sound information if they are diligent. Therein lies the problem. What we have is a bunch of people who all have the same access to the same information, so we have a bunch of experts a variety of things and sometimes the source of the information becomes a bigger problem than the original debate topic. Oddly enough, this isn't even the biggest issue.
The biggest problem with social media and search engines is that there are some people, generally adolescents and young adults who believe that this fingertip distance information makes up for the experiences that life gives you. A perfect example is a friend who loves to discuss what they learned in school. Now, it's hard for me to argue with what this individuals professors are teaching by saying it's wrong, but I can say, based on my experience that these facts tend to change. If I hear something and know it's changed five or six times and this person does not, due to lack of age, how can I convince them, because for most of their life it's been true.
Another issue is tests. Good fucking lord do we love tests. You know why we love tests? Frankly, it's a bit of a god complex brings us such pleasure. We take great pleasure in knowing that we scored better than others. Maybe it's 93% of the country or maybe it's 97% or maybe even 99%, who knows? You know why this doesn't matter? The next time a teen or young adults tells you how well they scored on something, ask them how hard a punch they can take? I know what you're thinking. What a jerk! But really, they have this vast wealth of knowledge, but do they know everything? In one single question, you baffle them, scare the shit out of them and prove, in most cases, that there is always something people don't know.
I'm not saying tests don't prove some ability to solve problems and we do call that intelligence, but I've seen rocket scientists try and build a tree house and look as silly as a baby trying to put the round block in the square hole. The problem is that with the Internet, all these young people think this matters. What you see is a lot of them spouting off about something based on one item of information, not realizing there might be a history of events leading up to this point.
So what is the endgame? There is going to come a time, when people who gained most of their knowledge before the advent of the Internet, decide to turn on those who didn't. It's up to the parents of these children to teach them, that it's not always the right thing to argue with people who might have a vast personal knowledge of something, that you can't find in books. A perfect example was a child who posed a question based on an article and then got annoyed when I debated the validity of the article based on much more empirical information than a bunch of numbers that were crunched. The problem with numbers as anyone can tell you from debating me, is that they can very easily be manipulated to say whatever you wish. Trust me, it's not difficult, as long as you have the correct data. Joey punching you dead in the face however, well you won't find a true description of how that feels in any book. Having your heart broken, doesn't quite fall in line with statistics on dating or how it's described in romance novels. Oh and sunsets, yeah, there's a scientific reason for that and not one person who has a heart or an imagination give a single fuck why and doesn't want to hear about how you got a 93% on a test that asked it. Trust me, I'm old. I know.
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