“We prefer knowing to thinking because knowing has more immediate value. It keeps us in the loop, keeps us connected to our friends and our cohort. Ideas are too airy, too impractical, too much work for too little reward. Few talk ideas. Everyone talks information, usually personal information. Where are you going? What are you doing? Whom are you seeing? These are today’s big questions.”
Knowing is also what gets you brownie points from academia & from most cubicle jobs. Rote memorization has become the litmus test by which many seem to measure intelligence. And most on the receiving end oblige because hey, do what your told and while society might suffer as a result of your lack of imagination & ideas, at least you’ll get that A. Or the promotion you so desperately want. So to me, our learning institutions and a great bulk of corporate America are to blame for big ideas dying on the vine just as much as new media.
The author makes some salient points though, particularly with the concept of “information narcissism.” That's certainly something I can see becoming more & more prevalent with the rise of the social graph.
Knowing is also what gets you brownie points from academia & from most cubicle jobs. Rote memorization has become the litmus test by which many seem to measure intelligence. And most on the receiving end oblige because hey, do what your told and while society might suffer as a result of your lack of imagination & ideas, at least you’ll get that A. Or the promotion you so desperately want. So to me, our learning institutions and a great bulk of corporate America are to blame for big ideas dying on the vine just as much as new media.
The author makes some salient points though, particularly with the concept of “information narcissism.” That's certainly something I can see becoming more & more prevalent with the rise of the social graph.