Americans are Usually Well-Informed Ignoramuses | UPDATE | 2ND UPDATE

Check out this highly provocative and probably prophetic interview with Doug Groothuis on the perils of technology. For example:

You said “Ours is an age infatuated with, addicted to, and voraciously hungry for ever-increasing doses of information.” Is this hunger for information in some way dangerous to the soul?

Yes, since we have limited capacities for knowledge and wisdom. Knowing what matters most—truths about God, ourself, and creation—takes time and effort. Being awash in information is not the same as gaining knowledge (truth received in a rational way). Americans are usually well-informed ignoramuses. We have oceans of facts or information at hand, but little knowledge. Wisdom is the proper use of knowledge. Americans typically have no idea how to handle all the data thrown at them: the more information, the less meaning.

Whole thing.

UPDATE:

Coincidentally, while I was going through my reader (I know, ironically), I came upon this post over at Wired: Five Technologies that Our Kids Won't Recognize. After reading the aforementioned interview, two of the five stood out:

Books

This one will take a while, but paper books will eventually be the written equivalent of the vinyl record — loved, collected and sold in small numbers, but really just a niche market. The e-reader isn’t nearly ready enough yet, but if the Kindle Magnum (or DX, or whatever) makes its way into schools and colleges, the formative experience of reading will be electronic, not paper, and that will be the beginning of the end.

Death Rating 2/5

Letters

More paper, and more words. A letter that comes in the mail is so rare these days that we can probably declare it extinct, with a few unsubstantiated sightings every year — much like Bigfoot. It’s a shame — writing a letter was a longer, more considered affair than banging out an email, an act which itself already seems out-of-date in these days of the Twitter. And receiving one from a friend or loved one is magical.

This romantic, personal method of communication has also formed a good chunk of history, something that will be lost — can you imagine the collected e-mails of a famous person being published after their death?

Death Rating 5/5

Whole thing.

2ND UPDATE:

Goodness.