Information Overload (Blog #6)

Listening to the Podcast by Ms. Lisa Jardine I began to think about how there is so much information out there we can't seem to learn it all, which in a way is dumbing ourselves down. If you think about it, we probably read about so many different things a day and when it comes to the end of the week we have forgotten what we read in class. It's almost like we ourselves are being overloaded with information thanks to the readily available information out on the internet with the assistance of Google.

I was reading an article by David S. Moore about the placement of Video and visual aids in Learning and teaching Strategies and he said in the article, "Students are not empty memory chips awaiting information transfer." And now having listened to the podcast by Ms. Jardine, I begin to think about how much information is given to us as students and how much we have to read or look up... WE JUST CAN'T REMEMBER EVERYTHING! I believe this podcast has changed my opinion some what. It's not just Google that is dumbing us down, but the amount of information we are given in a day, especially as students, is overwhelming. The internet is simply adding onto that amount of information we get and makes it that much more!

I remember as child that I could tell my mom every single thing I did in a week at school. Now, I only remember the big things that happen. Something a little less exciting, I forget about it and can't remember it.

Personally, I hate taking tests. I can get all the information and write it all down and study but when I take the test, I find it hard to remember everything that I was taught over a 3 month period.

People tend to remember little blurbs of things and forget about the whole long article. Everyone can remember their best friends status update, but when it comes to a whole article, people will only remember the first and last parts of it. Mostly because skip over a lot of it, but also because academic articles tend to have WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION. Or they can become really wordy which scares off a lot of people. Most people like things to be short and sweet to the point.

As far as Google, I don't think they are the cause of the dumbing down of society, they are simply helping the problem. As time goes on, we expect people to know that much more information, and people can't handle a ton of information all the time. But with the internet making it easy and faster to find the information. We just simply aren't use to having to really look for the answer. We just want the answer now and quick.

Moore, David S. “The Place of Video in New Styles of Teaching and Learning Statistics.” The                   American Statistician, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 172-176.