Does it?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| jezuch Jun 07, 2010 12:44 PM EDT |
Congratulation for an inflammatory lede ;) This is a good article, if you read the whole of it.Quoting:Digital media have made creating and disseminating text, sound, and images cheap, easy and global. The bulk of publicly available media is now created by people who understand little of the professional standards and practices for media. Instead, these amateurs produce endless streams of mediocrity, eroding cultural norms about quality and acceptability, and leading to increasingly alarmed predictions of incipient chaos and intellectual collapse. Yes, but. This is like a gold mine. It looks like this: you dig tons of rock, you grind it, you treat it with really nasty chemicals and as a result you get a tiny amount of gold. The notion that "traditional" media can reach into the rock and pull only gold nuggets is a laughable misunderstanding. You need a really big pipe - like the Internet. And really good filters. But thanks to vastly increased openness we stand a chance of discovering breathtaking geniuses that under previous model would be ignored, laughed at, brushed away as "not economicall viable" and maybe, just maybe rediscovered 200 years later, when it's 200 years too late. But, of course, you have to know what to look for in tons of barren rock (and sometimes much, much worse). |
| helios Jun 08, 2010 10:39 AM EDT |
It will become obvious that I did not RTFA... But the title itself poses some interesting sub-questions and brings to mind an incident from my childhood. During summer vacation I was putzing around outside and I asked my mom why "barn wood" was so expensive. (my Dad had tons of it and people came from other states to buy it from us). Instead of answering me, she told me to go to the library on Friday when we went into town and find out...she would expect an answer when I rejoined her after grocery shopping. I dutifully obeyed. I posed the question on a Tuesday and being 40 miles from the nearest town, I had to wait three days to get my answer. Today, as parents we would simply direct our kids to the nearest computer and tell them to look it up. I personally believe that since we know we have the answers literally at our finger tips at any time we need it, we will either hesitate to find answers or just blow it off completely. Except for the OCD behavior I exhibit at times when I cannot remember the artist that did some obscure 60's rock song...a nagging thing that will bug me until I get an answer. There is much to be said for "digging" out information...value received is often equated to effort applied. I'm just sayin... |
| hkwint Jun 08, 2010 11:54 AM EDT |
Should be read in conjunction with: Does the internet make you dumber? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870402530457528... |
| jezuch Jun 09, 2010 2:02 AM EDT |
Ah yes, point-counterpoint. I kinda looked like it. |
| tmx Jun 09, 2010 11:39 PM EDT |
But this could be said the same from the point of view of a person from the Middle Age who is illiterate, but depends on their surrounding and senses for survival, therefor they can remember a thousand words after one listen. Then printing came along and destroyed our memory. But I tend to agree more that facebook.... I meant internet makes you dumber. |
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