This past week I have been having to do an obscene amount of tedious work that was making me go somewhat crazy until I remembered how much I love podcasts and how great it would be to catch up on some of the great dialog available for free streaming on the internet while I did these monotonous tasks.  Although I am somewhat of an NPR podcast junkie already, I have maybe over indulged over the past week (listening to nearly 50 podcasts, youtube videos, TED talks, etc).   I felt like my brain was going to explode with all these new facts and ideas – some trivial some truly profound – but what was crazy is that I never got tired of listening and learning.  New information on astro-physics and innovations in green technologies, culture, communication, government, food (of course food), and the list goes on.

However, there were certain discussions in particular that really made me stop and think about this medium of education and how our generation is changing the way we take in, process, and distribute information. First, was a linguistics expert, who has written several papers on how texting is changing the way we speak and communicate with each other, giving examples of how certain phrases like omg and hashtag have made its way into our modern speech. Although I am not sure how great this transition is for our culture, it is undeniably making a significant alteration to the way we think to communicate and articulate ourselves to one another.  Even what I am doing right now (blogging) would seem completely strange or idiotic to someone a couple of decades ago.  Expressing every thought and idea (many times with little consideration for the consequences or implications of said thought) is now common place – status updates that include what you ate for breakfast, what your political affiliations are, who pissed you off, who you are in love with or thinking of being in love with, what soap box you want to stand on, etc.  Speech and the written word have changed dramatically because of technology.  (My spelling skills has especially suffered with auto-correct and the computer pointing out every spelling error and inferring what I was trying at).

Additionally, was a podcast on how the brain processes information and how crazy it is that we now have access to so much of it so quickly.  I do not know about you guys, but I personally have fallen down the rabbit hole that is the internet more than once. Maybe, you start with seeing a link on someones facebook page and then follow that to a story on a similar topic then you decide you like that writer so you find more on them or maybe more on the topic or maybe links just take you to more and more topics until you realizing you have been researching why we are losing bees, their genealogy, impacts on society and the environment, climate change, our ultimate doom, etc for hours and have no idea why.

We can learn more in a day by listening to podcasts or browsing the internet than past generations have been able to access in a lifetime.  However, that does not mean we always use it for education, to better ourselves, to enrich our lives or our environment.  With so many options and so much information also comes a dilemma.  One podcast discusses this dilemma of choice and finds that more choices actually makes us paralyzed so we many times do less, or choose less versus having to make a decision when faced with so many options. Now, while he does not speak specifically to access of knowledge I feel the concept definitely applies.

Deciding on a major, a class to take, a thesis to write, all seem limitless because of access to the internet and almost unlimited choices. Yes, most students figure out a way to buckle down and pick one or some truly have a singular passion or drive, but I think that is going to be changing dramatically in the coming years as the next generations will have their own ipad from birth.   For education to keep students attention I think it will have to become more dynamic and more interdisciplinary.  For example, I am in the geosciences program, which has combined the geology and geography program together to provide a physical AND social understanding of our environment, and the implications of our interactions between the two.  These types of programs are popping up across the county and around the world to produce innovative research and new understandings.  Our fellowship is also dynamic in this way, directly incorporating the technology we are accustomed to utilizing everyday into research and practical tools.

Technology has changed the way we access information and can be used for a tool to insert new ideas, creating more thoughtful, worldly individuals or can be used as a way to escape important human interactions – caring more about the # of twitter followers you have than actual friends to count on, creating a life’s dialog that revolves around headlines versus real news and information, and allowing the choices and information to overwhelm us.

I know much of this was a rant, but I would love for this discussion to continue and maybe for the comment section to also be utilized to share podcasts, videos or talks that you feel are important, funny, intriguing or speaking to this exact issue.

 

Podcasts or Talks I referenced:

http://www.npr.org/2013/12/13/248190652/spoken-and-unspoken?showDate=2015-03-13

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/05/243293489/misconceptions?showDate=2015-01-02

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/13/211713540/the-next-greatest-generation