‘Head in the Cloud — — When Knowing Things still Matters when Facts are so Easy to Look Up’ (II)
This week, we’ll continue with the remaining parts of ‘Head in the Cloud — — When Knowing Things still Matters when Facts are so Easy to Look Up’ by William Poundstone
Part III: Strategies for a Culturally Illiterate World
1. ‘How long it takes to hard-boil a large egg?’ More than two-thirds failed to give an answer that was even in the ballpark (9–13 minutes).
2. It takes about eleven minutes at boiling heat to cook an egg yolk all the way through.
3. How long it takes to grill each side of a one-inch-thick steak to medium doneness? Five minutes would be a reasonable answer.
4. How many teaspoons there are in a tablespoon? Barely half (49%) gave the correct answer, three.
5. Do you know how to screw in a lightbulb? 15% of my sample didn’t. The question asked which way to turn a bulb to screw it into an empty socket (the correct answer is clockwise).
6. The Internet seems to make it harder, not easier, to determine the truth.
7. The Internet can make it easy to check out a story that seems fishy, but you’re not going to check it unless you’re suspicious.
8. Radio is among the least customizable of media. There is no fast-forward, no TiVo, no aggregation algorithm. The radio audience is a relatively captive one that listens to whatever the programmers decree. And in NPR’s case, the programmers decree a reasonably balanced survey of the day’s news. Spend an hour listening, and you’ll learn a lot of material you wouldn’t necessarily have chosen to learn.
You might say that NPR is like the diet at a spa. You eat what’s put before you, and it’s good for you.
9. In general, the audiences for new, highly customizable media scored lower than those of less customizable media. Among Internet sources, news aggregators such as Google, Yahoo, and AOL scored especially low.
10. The news sources that correlate with being well-informed have a feature in common.
These audiences are willing to devote driven time to listening to NPR, to page through a print newspaper or skim all the headings in a paper’s app, and to listen to an entire podcast or watch a full episode of The Daily Show. It is attention span that accounts for much of the variation between media. The lowest-scoring news sources are the most customized or customizable — — those that cherry-pick stories to appeal to their audiences or let the audience itself be DIY news editors.
11. The most informative news sources embody the divide-your-plate philosophy. There are slots for national news, international news, pop culture, high culture, technology, health, and sports. The size of these slots has more to do with an editor’s or producer’s notion of an ideal balance than with what the audience wants or thinks it wants.
12. To form opinions on the scientific and technical issues driving public policy today — — climate change, net neutrality, stem cell research, genetically modified organisms — — it is not enough to learn some facts. One must deliberate over those facts and actively seek out evidence that challenges what one wants to believe or initially suspects to be true. This is not something that many average citizens have the time or inclination to do. We fake our opinions, going along with the crowd.
13. A broad and lifelong education is not just a means to achieving wealth and health. The act of learning shapes our intuitions and imaginations. Known facts make us wiser as citizens and supply the underrated gift of humility — — for only the knowledgeable can appreciate how much they don’t know.
Peder Mørk Mønsted
Source: http://www.artnet.com/artists/peder-m%C3%B8rk-m%C3%B8nsted/fall-day-at-kastellet-copenhagen-with-a-walking-95l9E1SVNZIZSYuAMG-NXw2
Source: http://www.artnet.com/artists/peder-m%C3%B8rk-m%C3%B8nsted/children-playing-in-a-meadow-with-spring-flowers-eiNc1zSqyxuLS57Z_726Ww2
Source: http://www.artnet.com/artists/peder-m%C3%B8rk-m%C3%B8nsted/autumn-view-from-a-village-with-two-boys-talking-a6IOuP1j873KX9vafA56LQ2
Source: http://www.artnet.com/artists/peder-m%C3%B8rk-m%C3%B8nsted/summer-landscape-FyGQoWoCrlOK_dCRmD5Wkw2
