On Infoluenza

The August 22nd post "Infoenza" in Knowledge Futures - Blog brought a vivid image of me in front of my bookshelf. There are so many wonderful books, I like to run my hands across them and smell them and just enjoy their beauty. The sight of my books gives me a feeling of wisdom. It's mine, all that knowledge, even if only in book form. Whenever I want to know something - there it is , at my fingertips. The internet is like my bookshelf with an added twist.

Dust Covers Intensified
Like my bookshelf, the internet's information is all there so easy and clear that -I hate to admit- many times I don't bother to really learn it. I can always read when I need it. So it's a fight to not allow one's knowledge to be reduced to a collection of two line summaries google style such as dust cover knowledge in bookshelf days. It feels like you know so much.

Footnotes Intensified
When we do decide to make those two line summaries of knowledge, complete - it's overwhelming. One jumps from one side of the "interverse" to another trying to focus on a bit of knowledge when a temptation, in form of link, appears and takes us to another block of related knowledge. If not VERY careful, we find ourselves fustrated after having spent hours and not finishing one single article. Extensive notes in a book are basically the same distraction but they are not as abundant nor tempting as those little blue words.

In summary, I don't think the skills and focus needed to take in information from the internet are different than trying to read in a large library of good books. Internet is on a much larger in scale and intensity, however, which makes it so much more challenging.

Now in saying that remember, I'm commenting on taking in information. When we consider the productive, communicative aspects of internet, things take an interesting twist. But that´s another topic.