Reading More but Learning Less?

Eliza · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 717

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/10/22/reading-more-but-learning-less

dick · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2254

The series of interesting essays all seem to come back to the same point:
If one wants to be informed, he can be; if he doesn't make that choice, neither availability nor extensiveness matter much. Or: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
I recall a rather vituperative discussion with a young student about her research paper, which I flunked. I had explained beforehand that most internet sources were questionable unless the credentials of the author gave them some validity. All of her sources were from the internet; some of the authors, it turned out, were other students who had posted their research papers as sources for students writing research papers--a questionable bit of charity.
It was, and I suppose still is, a common belief of students, that if something were in print, whether on paper or the net, it was therefore factual and valid. I have an elder sister who is equally credulous, though, so I shouldn't single out students.
As one of the essayists pointed out, information alone is not enough.

Eliza · Joined: 21 Aug 2011 Posts: 717

Leading the horse to water is exactly right. This paragraph said it for me:

"In 2007, the Pew Research Center set out to test whether the wide array of news sources available at that time made people any better informed. The answer: Not so much. Roughly as many people could name the vice president, or their state’s governor, as were able to do so in 1989. On some questions, people did better; on others, they did worse. But the bottom line was that people were about as likely to name key leaders, and were about as aware of major news events, as they had been nearly two decades earlier."