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The question I always have is whether we NEED that much information. I personally feel overwhelmed by the amount of time I’d need to spend on the internet to actually get a grasp on what’s going on. If you read the newspapers online, you miss out on the cultural milestones (like LOLcats.) If you surf blogs, you get a lot of people’s opinions, but don’t have much time to learn facts.
Do our kids still know how to do research in a library? Are we teaching them to learn from different sources to discern the truth amid so many op-eds? There’s no regulation on the internet. The first page of a Google search for “Titanic” might contain fan sites for the movie and contain no factual information about the ship or the controversy surrounding the cause of its sinking.
The bigger and more complex our global community grows, the less real bonds are formed. Think of your two favorite TV shows…how many people in your circle of friends watch those shows and can discuss them with you? If you happened upon a water cooler discussion of Mad Men and don’t watch the show, you miss out or have to plan an hour in your week to tune in. It used to be that everyone tuned in to the same show on TV after dinner. I guess if you didn’t like Leave it to Beaver, you were out of luck. But have we really gained anything with our 600 channels? Are we still relating to each other or are we just passing useless information back and forth across the universe?
And really, is this the best way for us to spend our time?
The question I always have is whether we NEED that much information. I personally feel overwhelmed by the amount of time I’d need to spend on the internet to actually get a grasp on what’s going on. If you read the newspapers online, you miss out on the cultural milestones (like LOLcats.) If you surf blogs, you get a lot of people’s opinions, but don’t have much time to learn facts.
Do our kids still know how to do research in a library? Are we teaching them to learn from different sources to discern the truth amid so many op-eds? There’s no regulation on the internet. The first page of a Google search for “Titanic” might contain fan sites for the movie and contain no factual information about the ship or the controversy surrounding the cause of its sinking.
The bigger and more complex our global community grows, the less real bonds are formed. Think of your two favorite TV shows…how many people in your circle of friends watch those shows and can discuss them with you? If you happened upon a water cooler discussion of Mad Men and don’t watch the show, you miss out or have to plan an hour in your week to tune in. It used to be that everyone tuned in to the same show on TV after dinner. I guess if you didn’t like Leave it to Beaver, you were out of luck. But have we really gained anything with our 600 channels? Are we still relating to each other or are we just passing useless information back and forth across the universe?
And really, is this the best way for us to spend our time?