I was recently reading a posting entitled “The Age of Mass Intelligence“. The article prompted some interesting points regarding the mass availability of information to the growing population of the world and the proliferation of intelligence around the globe.
Sure, there are still many people without internet access, cable TV and other mass media channels. But, clearly we live in an age where people across socio-economic ladder have more equality in their access to information than ever before in history. Our information is more unfiltered than ever before, there is more information generated by average people, and the information is available instantly.
Information that once took many months to circulate, was expensive to disseminate, and was reserved only for the elite levels of society, now has become a constant stream of information for all of us average folks.
There is no argument regarding the information available now. But I disagree with the title including the word Intelligence. Information and intelligence are not the same. I would argue that this is a proliferation of information, not intelligence. Sure, people have access to more information than ever before. But does that benefit society? I think that the proliferation only benefits society if it is a means for gaining intelligence. With intelligence, we can collectively make better choices, make smarter decisions.
It is having the capacity to understand the information that really leads to intelligence. I have a lot of books on my shelf at home that I’ve never read. In fact it is a big problem in my life. I love buying books, but can’t seem to find the time to read them. Does simply having all of that information at my disposal make me more intelligent?
I don’t know. I haven’t read that book yet.
Tags: information, intelligence, mass information, mass intelligence, mass media
Interesting thoughts. Does simply having fresh foods and vegetables at my disposal make me healthy? No. I have to take action on what is available to make “health” happen – and so it goes for intelligence. You have to take action on it – and sometimes, masses of information are difficult to take action upon because they are too MASSIVE.