Sunday, October 31, 2010

Information makes critics of us all.

By Anant Mathur (October 31, 2010)

I think today we live in a world with everything at our fingertips - literally. I remember when we did research on an assignment for school, we actually had to go to a library and find books on the subject – not only that, then when had to write the much dreaded bibliography. A small 4-5 page assignment would take days, even weeks, to complete. But nowadays, there are no such headaches, with the development and popularization of the internet we have Google bhai and Wikipedia bahen to help with such assignments. We can access information with the click of a mouse or with the touch of our fingertips.

Doing research is not only easy, it saves time. No more going to the library and looking for books and discovering that the book is available at a library 1 hour away from where you are. Today, we can access everything on a simple device like the iPhone while watching our favourite TV program. Surfing the net has become more popular than anyone could have ever imagined. And instead of taking weeks to do a 4-5 page assignment, it now takes hours.

So, what do we do with the extra days we have earned for ourselves? We learn, we acquire more knowledge, watch more films, surf and learn. We have to spend all this extra time somehow. I believe that all this so called learning is making mankind more critical, everyone has an opinion today and you can read about it on their blogs, twitter or facebook. We’re critical about everything from why the boss was unhappy to why the bride wore a hideous dress at the wedding you went to last night.

Even the media today has exploded into gigantic haze of journalism. Even movies today are criticized to no end. Because information is so readily available, people today are able to watch more foreign films and programs, something which was not possible 20 years ago. So, critics who loved films are now comparing our desi films to foreign ones, because, well, they can. Filmmakers who used to be in touch with family values and culture are now looking towards the west for their next big idea, because they’re now more influenced by the west than their local counterparts.

Everything has its good and bad points. Having information at our fingertips is a great thing, but we must remember not to get carried away and loose our identity because we believe everything we read. We must continue to explore and ask questions and not seek answers via Google bhai and Wikipedia bahen, but find them out for ourselves.

© Anant Mathur. All Rights Reserved.

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