When we were kids reading was the way in which you are open to the world of knowledge. For the kids now, a world without wikis and Google is unimaginable. Not just kids, even we often forget that to know something we had to refer to the Encyclopedia Britannica or so. I still remember when Microsoft came up with the Encarta and you could have encyclopedia on the computer. Technology has moved a long way since we started taking our first steps on it.
Today my 4 year old browses Google chrome and gets to his Disney
channel and starts painting. There was a time when I could go to my Dad with every question and he would have an answer. Now if my son comes to me with a question, I would be lucky if I can have an answer on top of my head. If he sees me browsing Google or wiki, he would not come to me next time. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
But there is now so much information that can mislead you and not really enable you to differentiate between, fact, hypothesis, opinion and fake. At least not at the age of 4 or 7 or even 12, even we read something and later on figure out that the information was bogus. This really puts a threat on the generation that grows consuming the internet information. There should be a way to work that around. I am a proponent of blogs as a blogger that is my fraternity, but what I write in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes can never be compared with a book that is written after the author has done years of research and interview. I am all for user generated instant content, but I am not sure how that can be if it were the only information you are using.
My Two Cents
Don’t throw your book away, yet!!
Categories: My Two Cents, Style40
Vinod Narayan 
Too much information too fast can overload the brain and lead to a breakdown in understanding and, therefore, no knowledge can be gained and sometimes the outcome is only confusion..