Knowledge acquisition - Changing Trends

Education (and I don't mean just the formal education that we acquire in school and college - but what we learn over our lifetime) has two contents. Spread and Depth.

You need to have working knowledge on a considerable range of topics to effect a decent conversation with people from various backgrounds, while possessing in depth understanding on limited areas. As one grows older it is essential that one increases the depth quotient subject range. This comes only through seeking knowledge, associating it with your life/work and applying the same.

With the advent of the visual medium and the world wide web, it is easy to seek knowledge. In my younger days, I had to wait for the Radio news (broadcast thrice a day) or for the morning papers to find out about the latest developments in the world. The thud of the paper falling on the porch, thrown by the newspaper boy, still reverberates in the ears. There used to be a scramble for the papers - between me, my brother and father. To avoid one of us sulking in the morning father ordered the newspaper boy to deliver three papers - The Hindu, Indian Express and Malayala Manorama. We also subscribed to nearly 20 weeklies and magazines every month.

It was difficult to be in touch with the world on a 24x7 basis. Library books were the only source of knowledge while in college. One had to walk about a Kilometre and a half to reach the library in the University Campus. There was an upside to all this. We went in search of knowledge and never rested till we found it. Since it was difficult to get, we cherished it when we ultimately got it as we would a treasure.

Don't mistake me. I am not one of those guys who keeps on harping about 'the good old days'. Believe me when I say those days were not half as good as today. There is an information explosion today. We have so many sources of information. Apart from TV and WWW, we have customized information packaged as Podcasts, Audio books, e-books etc. We are indeed lucky to be alive in an era where the collective wisdom of the world is available at our fingertips at the click of a mouse or the pressing of a button of the remote.

One of my close friends used to point out a flaw in me. He used to say, "Swamy (that was my nickname for a long long time till I came to Kuwait), the problem with you is that you don't make people starve before you give them something. You anticipate their need even before they do and provide them with what they want. As a result they don't appreciate the value of your offering". The same is true of knowledge. Since it is available so freely and easily accessible, people don't appreciate the value of it. Also the way in which we are conditioned to assimilate information has changed. Having brought up on a staple of TV news, we are more keen on sensational headlines than on deep analysis of issues of greater significance. We are absorbed by Teji Bachan's funeral, Sachin's elbow, Sunil Dutt's life in jail, political grandstanding than about the status of the economy, detrimental government policies that affect millions, inflation, technological developments, internal and external security, to just name a few.

And WWW has destroyed creative thinking. Almost any information is available on the net. 99% of the people make a living out of copying and pasting from the web. This does not encourage people to think out of the box. In the long run, what is being created is a society that has superficial knowledge about trivial issues, has wrong priorities as far as knowledge acquisition is concerned, is not creative and lacking in necessary skill sets. There is neither spread or depth, though with a little change in attitude both can be obtained.

Fd 4 tho8? (oops! SMS language. that is for another post)