Knowledge: The final frontier.
In the deepest depths of our brain, we all hope to find a steady, informed sense of consciousnesses, and a well-developed set of personalized skills- The ideal mind. But has the internet succeeded in helping or hurting this general human goal? In other words, has the internet made us more knowledgeable, rather than simply providing us access toinformation?
With smart-phones, Google searches, and the general information overflow that has come with the internet, the question reamains; are we any better off now? In order to answer these questions and many more, we have conducted several studies directed at the question of information overflow within a society. Our first step was to examine voting trends among people, in order to see whether or not an increase of media has led to greater voter turnout, or if it has created greater apathy among voters. The second idea we analyzed was skill mastery. This section allowed us to look at the difference between people who has mastered a skill versus people who have only general knowledge of a skill; which is important because with the ability to simply “google” anything it has led to a decrease of people people who actually have mastered any one particular subject. Lastly we examined how people use use media in their day to day lives, focusing on whether or not an increase of media consumption has led to a better informed public. And it is through examining these three categories that we have been able to articulate the impact of information overflow.
**NOTE!
All analysis can be conveniently found on our website, here:
Term
Winter 2012
Category
Knowledge & Information
Short Summary
This project takes on the differences between knowledge and information, as well as questions the effect the mass overflow of information the internet offers on users young and old.