I grew up at a time when the "search engines" were being developed and "perfected". I sure miss Mr. Jeeves. Google is now widely use, but I think a search engine can only be improved with people asking the right questions or searching for new discoveries.
Lately, I really dislike using the internet. I think my search history or whatever has made the internet source one way to me, whatever interests me and whatever I seem to repeatedly like to see or something similar in that nature. I miss going to school where I was learning everyday and presented with things to learn.
When I use a search engine, like Google, I really have nothing new I am searching for. In fact, everything I am searching for I sort of already know and am just looking for information to confirm what I already know. Similarly on YouTube, I am fed with videos that makes me angry or annoys me sometimes even from channels of official news channel. Perhaps, the content of news and news reporting need to be revisited. I now scroll my feed and am wary before I click into any videos, all of which are less than 20 minutes.
As I lay in my bed, I thought the best search engine is still the library. You walk into a sea of books and can stumble across something you are not looking for as you walk around freely in the library. A book contains a lot more information than any articles you read on the internet or any videos you watch. In fact, the content of the internet derived from past knowledge.
So, thank you but no thank you. TEDx Talks, to me, is just a 20 minutes advertisement by people to entice people to listen to more of their lectures. I watched a bunch of TEDx Talks videos the other day, I didn't really feel inspired to delve deeper into any of the topics covered. I did, however, had a desire to deliver a public speech. Afterall, I've been a listener most of my life and I am tired of being told to listen to things on repeat (which I have heard many times from many people already). It would be interesting to see how I fare at public speaking, a task I hated in elementary school. The problem is I don't know what I want to present on so I'm putting it off. Actually, is there a TEDx debate? Every single video I saw was a presentation followed by applause. The crowds at the presentations are always very supportive.
Anyhow, I really disliked one of the TEDx talk I watched so I didn't finish watching it. At that moment, I thought about university. I thought about how in university they train you to be critical so that you are ready to answer hard questions or to welcome new ideas. Eventually my train of thoughts led me to wonder how hard it is for someone to obtain a PhD. Let me take you back to the beginning when I felt annoyed by the presenter and had to turn the video off.
My first thought, I cannot listen to this presenter anymore and I disagree. My next thought, imagine if this person was a university lecturer and I have to listen to such person's research for an entire semester. No way! I cannot even take 20 minutes of this presentation which should be the highlight of such person's research. When I was younger, I never looked at university classes this way. What if the dropping rate of courses was not a reflection of people not understanding the material and being scared of receiving a failing grade but instead a reflection of disagreement with the information being presented? That will be very problematic. When I was a student, I would not drop any courses because of the financial penalty. Luckily, I learned in all of my classes. I was young so I was more teachable and open minded.
Now, I don't want to go back to school because I am old and am out of practice when it comes to studying. My brain is no longer wired to be constantly memorizing. It takes me longer to read now because I read differently now.
I feel #old.
No comments:
Post a Comment