Instant Answers vs. Delayed Gratification
February 25, 2013
“Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
– T. S. Eliot, “The Rock”
“The mobile device is our new magic.”
– Noble Smith, The Wisdom of the Shire: A Short Guide to a Long and Happy Life
Answers at the tips of our fingers
“Mobile technology puts real time information in your pocket, allowing everyone to magnify his or her knowledge in any setting.”
– Michael Saylor, The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything
How quickly we have become used to finding answers almost instantaneously. We carry smart phones and tablets and are never far away from the Internet and more information than we know what to do with. It’s addicting. I don’t know too many people who would want to give up the ease of researching on the web. But I do wonder what effect all this immediacy has on our inner lives.
I remember (just a few years ago) when questions arose and we lived with unknowing. We lived with a sense of wonder, open to multiple possibilities because the answers were not yet set in concrete. Our minds and imaginations were called into play. We learned to live with uncertainty. Many times we never did find the answers to the questions that had cropped up in our conversations. And we accepted that, too.
I don’t feel any smarter these days when information abounds. Do you? Where is the wisdom and understanding that comes from first-hand knowledge, direct observation and primary experience? These days it seems as if the greater portion of our knowledge comes second-hand from reading about things, on screens or in books, rather than from personal discovery.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. This knowledge is so fragile!”
– Richard Feynman
Do you go to Google for answers?
“Not all of the world’s answers are at the end of a Google search.”
– Don MacLeod, How to Find Out Anything
Google feeds the illusion that answers can be found to anything, almost instantaneously. But just think about all of those answers that are unwieldy, jumbled and complex. There are not always clear or quick answers to messy real-life issues that take a long time to fix. Maybe we need more practice in how to live unsettled and with uncertainty.
“It so happens that a capacity for delayed gratification is correlated with intelligence and attainment in life.”
– Paul Martin, Counting Sheep
February 25, 2013 at 11:20 am
I just had another reminder experience of what comes immediately after simply watching a video and how a person yanks from it what they heard in passing and determine that they KNOW everything else about the subject. I like to use quotations, however, I often spend time, then reading the writer or speaker of them, for context. There doesn’t seem to be that concept of peer review or validity either–maybe I am naive in thinking that such a thing makes a difference, as all humans can miss things or make mistakes.
Upon more thinking, I remember an excellent teacher who would ask students….where did you get that information. The answer was…a book. The teacher would laugh and then go on and ask how we know the information is correct, had we tested it?
February 25, 2013 at 1:07 pm
I agree that one must read, with caution, so-called “facts” presented in writing on the web, or in books for that matter. Good point.
February 28, 2013 at 10:08 am
And Google’s search algorithms are terribly suspect. They sell page position, after all. The rule of thumb is: if you’re going to use Google to search, skip the first two pages of results (what Google wants you to see) and begin on page three, where you may find results more relevant to what you’re looking for. For a quick bio check or a spelling, that first page is fine. For real research, not so much.
I did a little experiment. I carried out some searches using both Google and Duckduckgo – which also happens to preserve privacy. The differences in the results I got were pretty interesting in some cases.
February 28, 2013 at 10:22 am
I wasn’t aware of the bit about Google algorithms. and I’ve not heard of Duckduckgo. I’ll have to try this myself. Thanks!