Back in my Day...
Couldn't agree more you all. I'm of the belief that every step forward is also an equal and opposite step back. With the internet, information abounds but what youngsters today don't understand is that information is not knowledge. With cable tv, many of the old films are shown but few youth are interested. Also, I've read that deep reading is nearly non-existent amongst the young, few have the patience to read a novel like Anna Karenina for example. Research has shown that concentrated reading of this type even develops new neural pathways that don't come from anything else. This makes one wonder what our brains will become?
Now like you, I don't want to seem or be curmudgeonly, I know many great things have come of late; my being able to instantly communicate with impressive people like you all for instance, but I do wonder what digital distractions are doing to people's ability to focus. It's like the entire culture is ADD.
A few years back I read a book called A Peace to end all Peace by David Fromkin. A very detailed tome that certainly upped my WWI knowledge.
Anyway, I know we're off topic and I apologize. I do like to discuss what modernity is doing to the human species though...
Probably should take that to a pub thread...
Greg
Also, there's probably a word for it, but as the breadth of available knowledge increases, the depth of what people generally know seems to be decreasing. I'm constantly amazed at how much people just 15 years younger than I am don't know about fairly recent history. I would think that if I (I was born in 1967) know about the Lindbergh kidnapping, people born in the 1980s would know about the Patty Hearst kidnapping, but then I think about how much information people have been bombarded with, and how much of "the present" there is to keep track of anymore, I guess people have less and less time for history.
Now like you, I don't want to seem or be curmudgeonly, I know many great things have come of late; my being able to instantly communicate with impressive people like you all for instance, but I do wonder what digital distractions are doing to people's ability to focus. It's like the entire culture is ADD.
A few years back I read a book called A Peace to end all Peace by David Fromkin. A very detailed tome that certainly upped my WWI knowledge.
Anyway, I know we're off topic and I apologize. I do like to discuss what modernity is doing to the human species though...
Probably should take that to a pub thread...
Greg
Comment