The Dangers Of Externalizing Knowledge
1st January 2011
Nobody learns anything any more; they just learn how to look it up.
Think of that habit which I and likely everyone reading this succumb to now and then. You are talking with a friend, and can’t remember who that guy was in that movie. Without thinking, you pull out your phone and search. Mystery solved, it was Patrick Swayze. Harmless enough, right? The web in our pocket allows us to settle bar bets and track down trivia with ease. A tiny load off everyone’s mind.
The problem lies with the trend. We’re looking up more things, more often, and not because we’re more curious. It’s because we can’t be bothered to retain even the data that matter to us. The GPS in cars is an advance party of this trend: every couple months we hear of some driver who has followed the GPS to the bottom of a lake, or used a highway as a walking path because it was labeled as such on their phone’s map. My dad, who has driven to visit my brother in Vancouver, B.C., a dozen times, still uses the GPS despite my brother living in the same neighborhood for several years now. When I went up with him a month ago, the GPS route was slightly different, and my dad nearly had a panic attack. I convinced him to take the correct exit, but he was this close to doing something he knew was wrong simply because the map indicated he should.
If these things you’ve collected are important to you, or you found them interesting, why aren’t they inside you? Why aren’t they becoming part of the sea of experiences that makes up your unique intelligence and personality? If you fail to integrate an experience, it was, for all intents and purposes, no better than a dream.
January 1st, 2011 at 19:57
I bet the Amish know where Uncle Heinrich lives; but even they don’t make their own Vitamin C.