On the slower lane…

To learn we need information. Our thinking is vastly influenced by what we are informed of, and when we are fed with a large pool of information, gaining accurate knowledge is not trivial. Since last decade or so, communication and information retrieval have been revolutionized by internet. Now we are in situation where there is an excess of information, and the major task is how to find the required knowledge from a large pool of information. There may be more and more accurate search engines which can filter and narrow down your query, but the major question is how does your mind differentiate between accurate information from the inaccurate one?

Perhaps, the answer lies in spending more time on the information we acquire, and here lies the major problem. There is a conflict in our mind, where our thinking has to be adapted to the rate at which the information flows in. As a result of this, we need to think faster, learn faster and decide faster to keep up the pace. This implies that the average time on thinking, learning and decision making is now proportional to the rate of information flow. But from previous experience and history, we very well know that accuracy in thinking, learning and decision making critically depends on the amount of time we spend on it. It is as simple as this: longer the time we spend with data, more information can be retrieved out of it. But now, we are in a situation where we need to hasten the processing time. So, the problem is: how does one acquire accurate knowledge by keeping pace with the rate of input of information?

May be, to improve our ability to judge and prioritize, we need to slow down our lives. Yes, SLOOOOW DOWN…. Rushing through may be a requirement of our environment, but going on a slower lane gives us opportunity to foresee a mistake which we may make by going faster. A deeper and longer thought on this issue is required URGENTLY!