"Once upon a time - not so long ago - the internet opened like a library with no closing hours. It offered us Google, and then Wikipedia, and with them a curious kind of magic: everything we ever wanted to know, right there, blinking in front of us. It was harmless enough, even liberating. We no longer had to argue about who directed Casablanca or the difference between a quark and a lepton. Answers flowed like tap water."
"Not long after came the shortcuts - CliffsNotes for Shakespeare, then for Kant, then for life itself. Everything abstract or difficult was carved into quick summaries, punchy headlines, 30-second reels. Learning became a buffet of "life hacks," each one promising to make you smarter, faster, richer, or more "optimized." We began slicing reality into slivers, assuming that each fragment bore the same shimmering reflection as the whole. It was as if a single puzzle piece, held aloft and scrutinized, could reveal the full picture."
"But ask anyone who actually knows something - really knows it. A scientist who's spent decades in a lab, an artist whose hands are stained with pigment, a leader who's failed forward more times than they can count. They'll tell you: a fact out of context is just a shard of glass. It cuts. It glints. But it doesn't build a window."
The internet opened unprecedented access to information, liberating users from basic factual disputes. Over time, quick summaries, punchy headlines, and short media transformed complex ideas into consumable shortcuts. Learning grew fragmented as isolated facts were treated as full understanding. True expertise requires sustained practice, context, and the allowance to fail forward. Facts detached from context become shards that cut and glitter without constructing meaningful perspective. AI intensified the trend by producing polished, convincing answers on demand, fostering a sense of knowing that often replaces earned experience and practiced, contextual understanding.
Read at Big Think
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