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We are not in the information age. We may not even be close

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Pundits call this age we are in “The Information Age,” I argue that and have argued that since it first started to appear ten years ago. We are not in the information age yet. There are too many issues that prohibit information.

1. There is no global and universal intellectual capital protection. China is notorious for copying technology.

2. There is no universal information validation.

3. There is way too much information stored on hard drives of users that have never seen the light of day!

Twenty years ago, we were closer to a true information age on the internet than we are today. That was before the decline of peer-reviewed journals. The value of an SME driven (SME = subject matter expert. That is not a self-appointed title, and it comes from experience or college education. Experts reviewed articles before publication. That meant that if you saw it in one of the peers reviewed journals at least 3 or 4 people verified the information before placing it. Yesterday I talked about the fact the 5g is coming to speed up networks. I got some great comments, but one of the interesting themes was that of information overload. I suspect the reality isn’t overload.

I suspect the reality is the nature of information in this the pre-information age. Why are we in the pre-information age? First, because we are transitioning. There are people who grew without information at their fingertips and people that grew up with information at their fingertips. Just because someone says it on the internet, however, doesn’t mean its true (my twins and I often argue the quality of a source). Do invalid sources sometimes have the correct information, yes! But do they often have misinformation or disinformation, yes! My father always taught me to consider the source. If a source of information doesn’t prove reliable or consistent over time, get a new source.

Always follow my grandfather’s rule, “trust but verify.” The information has value. But, in this pre-information age, the quality of the data, is critical. The reason we aren’t in a true information age is you can’t search the internet and get known good information. The search will return sites that are popular or sites that have paid the search engine to be listed. Just that alone pushes the information age a bit further out.

  • Question of

    Do you ever feel like there is too much bad information out there?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Do you read something, think about it, and check the credentials of the person that wrote it?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Do you trust but verify?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Have you ever felt like turning off your computer, phone and other connected devices?

    • Yes
    • No

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Written by DocAndersen

One fan, One team and a long time dream Go Cubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

48 Comments

    • my kids get frustrated with me because I make them give me a source. “I read it on the internet” isn’t a valid source.

      They glare at me (normal state anyway).

      1

      • My funniest statement on the internet ever was in a HTML2 era chatroom with people in Britain. It involved how to stop your dog from killing your chickens. I told them you tie the chicken they killed around the dog’s neck and leave it there for a week. They asked if this really worked or was I joking. I said, “Sure it works. I know it’s true because I saw it in a movie.”

        1

  3. Thank you for the posting on the information/pre-information age. I don’t find it necessary to unplug because I don’t use that much technology.

    1

  5. There is a wealth of information online. The big question is how many are checked. I think we need to be very careful with this information and not trust everyone.

    1

  6. There is a lot of people trying to sell snake oil to solve all your problems.
    The internet does not always have information, but dis information.

    What really gets me is the number of people telling you that your qualified Doctor is wrong when their herbal product is right and all medicines are evil

    This is often wrong

    1

  7. It is very clear to me, that the article you have posted here is long overdue. We are indeed a very long way away, from being able to call our technologically poor age, anything more than, flawed at this point, anyhow. a Great and insightful post. Thank you, Doc.

    1

  8. I have to verify a subject on multiple sources before accepting it. Although there are subjects which will always be conflicting. Such subjects are hard to verify e.g. is the earth millions, billions or hundreds of years? And there is no scientific consensus how long is the earth?
    I agree we are far from the information age.

    1

  10. We have a lot of good information online – check the scholarly articles and then there are those things that people write off the cuff without bothering to check if the information they provide is factual. I take everything with a pinch of salt and an overdose of reading related articles.

    1