Dr. Asangba Tzudir
Social media like Facebook, WhatsApp, Youtube etc. serves as a channel to get access to ‘knowledge’ and ‘information’ like healthcare and beauty tips; exercise and physiotherapy; how to live healthy and happy in old age; building and gardening related skills; those interested in learning guitar can simply follow You tubers teach how to play guitar, and many more. However, the question is whether people who try to learn through such medium have acquired mastery or got real benefits.
Living in the age of technology and bombarded by information, the daily doses of information comes in surplus. According to official WhatsApp statistics 65 billion messages in various forms including info links are sent per day as of May 2018. So also the average time spent per login to Facebook is 20 minutes with 5,10,000 comments posted every 60 seconds as provided by infodocket. But has it made people well-informed or smarter? The mere access to information and data does not make people better thinkers and learners. And in the absence of a proper mechanism, most people have never learned how to learn properly.
Being exposed to information is not the same as internalizing and adapting the knowledge practically. One may also take the case of the education system where students acquire knowledge which is ‘reproduced’ during exams for the ‘pleasure reading’ of the teachers. Turning what the students learn into wisdom that they can apply throughout their lives is scarce. The application of knowledge has also become different in the face of being exposed to a lot of information every day, unlike the traditional learning system that involved application of skills.
Today, the quality of the knowledge is sacrificed at the altar of quantity leading to an imbalance between the information acquired and the information that is applied for practical use. The pursuit of information is thrilling but at the same time creates a fear psychosis of being away and missing out on the thrill of passing and receiving information. However, convenient and easy access to knowledge is no replacement for deep learning through effort and concentration. How much of the easily accessed information have people really applied in their lives is a question worth pondering.
The medium and the flow of information is such that we are made to eat elephants buffet, and this is where one needs to know how to select as well as filter information so that it will be easier to absorb so also apply productively and meaningfully. It is not always easy to translate information from the virtual screen into the real world, and the fact that the amount of information is much more than what can be processed by the brain. Thus, it requires filtering out what is not necessary. Three filters postulated by Socrates still hold relevance - the filter of truth, goodness and usefulness, which will not only help navigate and filter through the abundance of information accessible through various sources but also take information into the real world with practical applicability for making meaningful returns.
In this fast-paced age of information a lot of un-learning is required through re-learning because Knowledge and information is not simply for the sake of knowing, but to be applied. Great minds and skilled people today did not become great or skilled by scrolling through social media or merely reading books, rather by filtering and giving meaning to the knowledge and information and thereby making it relevant.
(Dr. Asangba Tzudir writes a weekly guest editorial for the Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
