The Age Of Information
Posted: February 15, 2013
Rural Pen
When I was first married, I didn’t know how to cook. On many afternoons, I walked down the block to a telephone booth, called my mother and asked her culinary questions: How long it took to bake a small ham or how to make coleslaw.
She was happy to help. We usually talked a few minutes about other things — homemaking issues, her day, my day — and then said goodbye.
Now, of course, I Google it.
In the past few days, I have Googled recipes for Pasta fagioli, the lyrics to a Jan Crist album, an author I may be related to, how to know when maple syrup is done boiling, Valentine gifts to crochet, the Museum of Broken Relationships and the menu for a Harrisonburg restaurant. That’s just to name a few.
To get this information, I did not have to leave my house, call anyone or send for it in the mail. I did not have to wait. A few seconds passed from the moment I wanted the information to the moment it appeared on my screen.
I did not have to experience any discomfort about my lack of knowledge, impatience at having to wait or anxiety about whether or not I would find the information.
We have gained access to almost any information we want, day or night, within seconds. But what have we lost?
“Information, once rare and cherished like caviar, is now plentiful and taken for granted like potatoes,” writes David Shenk in “Data Smog.”
Of the things I’ve recently Googled, what information did I really need?
I have cookbooks with recipes for pasta fagioli. If I really had to have the Jan Crist lyrics, I would have listened to the song a few times, pen and paper in hand. I could have telephoned my cousin David, the family genealogist, to ask if we were related to the author. I would have relied on my wits and experience in judging whether the maple sap was at the syrup stage.
I did not find any quick Valentine’s gifts to crochet. To find the Museum of Broken Relationships, I would have to go to the library. For the menu, I’d have to take a chance and go to the restaurant.
Most of the information I Googled was unnecessary. I actually wasted time finding it. Information, writes Shenk, “is only as valuable as it is useful.”
When I first worked at the newspaper in the early 1990s, there was no Internet access. If I could not find background information in a reference book in the office, I walked over to the public library, just a block away.
Sometimes I consulted the reference librarian, Nick, who was always happy to help me find it.
With all this checking on useless information — not to mention email and all the Facebook strangers and acquaintances of whom I have intimate knowledge — I often think I am missing my own life.
As Bilbo Baggins tells Gandalf in “Fellowship of the Ring,” “Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.”
What of the present moment, or the rich lessons life has to offer as we live it day by day? If I spend so many moments of my day in this abstract absence, what am I missing?
Thank God I don’t carry the Internet in my hand.
My friend, Ben, uses technology wisely. Rather than whip out his smartphone to look something up on the spot, he whips out a pad and jots it down to look up later.
I wonder how much of it, when he finally gets online, does he actually research.
By doing this, Ben stays in the room, in the moment, with the person or people he is with.
As we make such decisions to revere each moment of our lives, we might be rewarded by seeing the beauty therein and learning what it has to teach us.
And it wouldn’t hurt to call your mother.
She was happy to help. We usually talked a few minutes about other things — homemaking issues, her day, my day — and then said goodbye.
Now, of course, I Google it.
In the past few days, I have Googled recipes for Pasta fagioli, the lyrics to a Jan Crist album, an author I may be related to, how to know when maple syrup is done boiling, Valentine gifts to crochet, the Museum of Broken Relationships and the menu for a Harrisonburg restaurant. That’s just to name a few.
To get this information, I did not have to leave my house, call anyone or send for it in the mail. I did not have to wait. A few seconds passed from the moment I wanted the information to the moment it appeared on my screen.
I did not have to experience any discomfort about my lack of knowledge, impatience at having to wait or anxiety about whether or not I would find the information.
We have gained access to almost any information we want, day or night, within seconds. But what have we lost?
“Information, once rare and cherished like caviar, is now plentiful and taken for granted like potatoes,” writes David Shenk in “Data Smog.”
Of the things I’ve recently Googled, what information did I really need?
I have cookbooks with recipes for pasta fagioli. If I really had to have the Jan Crist lyrics, I would have listened to the song a few times, pen and paper in hand. I could have telephoned my cousin David, the family genealogist, to ask if we were related to the author. I would have relied on my wits and experience in judging whether the maple sap was at the syrup stage.
I did not find any quick Valentine’s gifts to crochet. To find the Museum of Broken Relationships, I would have to go to the library. For the menu, I’d have to take a chance and go to the restaurant.
Most of the information I Googled was unnecessary. I actually wasted time finding it. Information, writes Shenk, “is only as valuable as it is useful.”
When I first worked at the newspaper in the early 1990s, there was no Internet access. If I could not find background information in a reference book in the office, I walked over to the public library, just a block away.
Sometimes I consulted the reference librarian, Nick, who was always happy to help me find it.
With all this checking on useless information — not to mention email and all the Facebook strangers and acquaintances of whom I have intimate knowledge — I often think I am missing my own life.
As Bilbo Baggins tells Gandalf in “Fellowship of the Ring,” “Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.”
What of the present moment, or the rich lessons life has to offer as we live it day by day? If I spend so many moments of my day in this abstract absence, what am I missing?
Thank God I don’t carry the Internet in my hand.
My friend, Ben, uses technology wisely. Rather than whip out his smartphone to look something up on the spot, he whips out a pad and jots it down to look up later.
I wonder how much of it, when he finally gets online, does he actually research.
By doing this, Ben stays in the room, in the moment, with the person or people he is with.
As we make such decisions to revere each moment of our lives, we might be rewarded by seeing the beauty therein and learning what it has to teach us.
And it wouldn’t hurt to call your mother.
Luanne Austin lives in Mount Sidney. Contact her at RuralPen@aol.com, www.facebook.com/rural pen or care of the DN-R.