A friend sent me this video today that sparked some interesting lines of thought. I’ve been online since the early 90s, so I often lose sight of just how rapidly things have advanced, and how deeply the Internet — and technology in general — has changed all of our lives. Just think: “If MySpace were a country, it would be the fifth largest country in the world” and “Today, the number of text messages sent and received every day, exceeds the total population of the planet.”
It took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million, but it took the iPod only 3 years, and FaceBook only 2 years. In part this is due to reduced manufacturing and distribution costs, as well as an overall advance in the general standard of living for people in developed nations; but there’s more to it than just that. I mean, the iPod doesn’t demonstrable improve one’s life: it’s a luxury good, not some fundamentally necessary thing like clean drinking water. Facebook is as much a fun diversion from the workday as it is a fundamental change in the way we communicate with peers and colleagues.
It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.
Seeing this was a mild shock at first. It made sense after a couple moments, though. I recently finished reading Clay Shirkey’s book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, and he deals with this topic in a very easy-to-understand way. In the old days, when the cost of production was high (publishing, broadcasting, etc), people had to actually choose what to produce. The model was “Filter, then publish”. Nowadays, the cost of production is so low (blogs, Youtube, etc) that the decision of what to produce is moot: just produce it all, and let the audience figure out what they want to consume. This model Shirkey calls “Publish, then filter.” So yes, while there’s a staggering amount of information available to us today, we filter out the bits we don’t want, and focus in on the bits we do want. It’s easy for us acquire more niche information.
For students starting a 4 year technical degree this means that … half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.
This is an interesting observation, and it’s the one part of this video with which I take real issue. In part, this is because in another life I provide support to the faculty and staff of an engineering college at a large university. The faculty there struggle all the time whether they want to educate, or provide instruction.
Education, in this context, means teaching people how to think. It’s how you approach a problem, how you define the problem, and what processes you use to evaluate possible solutions. This has nothing to do with the tools available to you. I think most faculty (at least the ones with which I interact) want to educate, but unfortunately the business world doesn’t want to spend the time instructing recent graduates how to use the specific tools in use within the industry.
So some portion of the curriculum is spent on instruction: how to use specific tools to solve specific problems. This gives students a jumpstart for entering their chosen industry. If anything, it’s this stuff that is likely to be outdated or stale by the time the students graduate. Education — learning how to think — ought never become outdated.
A couple years ago I read Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End, and one of the most interesting things to me was that students would take a “Search and Analysis” class in school. With 31 billion Google searches every month, I think we all kind of take it for granted that we’ll be able to find what it is we want. How long will that be the case? At what point will there be such an overwhelming body of knowledge that Google — or some other entity — won’t be able to catalog it all in any way that helps us? How much longer until it’s actually necessary to take a class to learn how to search for information online?
I don’t have any deep revelations to share with you. This video sparked some interesting avenues of thought within me, and I wanted to share it with you. What do you think?
Awesome video! One point I’d like clarified if anyone has the data though.. the video claims the Internet only took 4 years to reach a market of 50 million. Problem is, you can define the Internet as coming into existence at several times in the 1974-1990 time range (the term was first used in 1974). I seriously doubt 50 million were using the Internet in 1978 though.
I found a reference that “By 1995, the internet had an estimated 16 million users” and one that says 45 million in 1996.. but the Internet existed way before circa 1992..
I don’t think I learned much of anything that would be out of date my freshman year of a technical degree – it was all basic concepts and seemingly ancient sciences.
That said, the video presents some interesting ways of looking at the facts. I’d say more, but I need to go learn Hindi. And Telugu.
This is actually the second version of this video, I saw the original in a webcast that I moderated for Bombardier a few months back. I believe the original was made by some school teachers in Colorado, (that is what the Bombardier sponsor told me.) In any case, a fascinating presentation, some of those figures are almost haunting. It makes me wonder what the next great medium will be. The internet will be usurped one day, but by what? I hope I live to see it.
What a great video! It’s a bit scary, though… In 2049 a $1000 computer will be more powerful than the whole of the human species!? :O
Brings in to light the buzz around the tubes for “deep web-search” services for those things that are out there, but are either antiquated and therefore downplayed by the modern googles and left out of results because wiki didn’t reference them and whatnot, or that are left on page 329..
In light of the increase of information created uniquely and otherwise made newly available to the masses in what is seemingly an anti-telescopic or even cumulatively expanding rate/effect, these services should be focused on and brought to the forefront. Should they not? Anybody can submit web queries and find “what they were looking for” in some respect – but it really has taken years for the savviest of us to tune in our abilities and abilities to choose the results that are given to us to really be able to say that we are exemplary data researchers and can truly find “anything” that is out there and available.
Will there be some crescendo at hand where we will max out the amount of information that can be viably available without beginning to write off the whole of our past to history and archiving where the age of data in this new human speed we have achieved for learning and creating makes the age of data the first pertinent factor in judging its relevance to a subject?
Ok I kind of spun off there and did a half think / half type deal and I’m not sure I made my thoughts to sense – but if you can follow… it’s all something to really think deeply about.
great video…it has been around for a few years now, looks like this was an update for 2008.
Everyone in the US should watch this and think long and hard about our educational priorities and government investments in technology.
Funny how it says research performed by blah and blah at the end.
2013 we shall have a computer that outperformes the human brain in terms of computations. That makes those producers some of the best neuroscientists in the world as they have finally figured out all the computations a brain can do. Nice, I should quit my Phd right now. darn!
When I’m 55, there will be super computers that can out think me. And probably kill me, because by then, they will have thought up little robot arms for choking too. And all for less than a mac. Thats just wacky.
If anyone is interested, you can read through the history/backstory of the presentation.
Interesting video — where are the references for the facts that are presented?
The video stated that, in 2006 the U.S. had 1.3 million college graduates; India had 3.1 million college graduates; and China had 3.3 million graduates. I’m still trying to verify these numbers. But, let’s accept them for now. Does this suggest anything? Does this suggest that India and China are doing a better job at educating? If you look at the percentages, the U.S. percentage of college graduates in 2006 is more than 63% higher than India and more than 74% higher than China! Let’s look at it this way: In a city with a population of 100,000, how many people in these cities graduated from college in 2006?
U.S.: 4.33 (about 4 and one-third)
India: 2.65 (about 2 and two-thirds)
China: 2.48 (about 2 and one-half)
Maybe the appearance of a better educated country is not a true reflection of reality.
Maybe the suggestion cannot be substantiated with facts.
Maybe the viewer should be careful about concluding anything from this.
The video was very interesting and i enjoyed watching it. I can only imagine how Hi-tech everything is going to be when i am a grandmother… I will feel like I am in the movie BACK TO THE FUTURE!!!… hehe