I used to learn a lot from television.
I’m an avid learner. I love it, I love learning. In fact sometimes I frustrate myself because as soon as I start to get really good at something all I want to do is learn something else. I’ve come to realize that very often, it is the process of learning itself, rather than the aquired skill, that I find intriguing.
This really gelled for me earlier this year when I started working for Connexus Community Church. They have all of their employees take a Strengthsfinder 2.0 test. They do this to find out what you’re good at, and how to make the best use of your skills and work with others on staff. It’s a pretty long test and when I was finished 3 of my top five strengths all had something to do with learning and acquiring new knowledge and skills.
I used to learn a lot from television. I picked up a lot of smarts from the likes of Discovery Channel and TLC. This was way back when these networks were educational and before they were overrun with families with 184 children as well as unwitting demolition derby contestants. These networks used to have really valuable information on all the time, documentaries, new discoveries, new technology, a wealth of new information. I picked up on this waaayyy earlier than most kids, tuning in regularly without my parents around the same time I was watching Barney.
So what happened? The networks went down the pipes, started airing less than insightful offerings, and I started reading more. Now a TV doesn’t even exist in our household, much less a satellite or cable connection. And even though I did learn a lot, it wasn’t directional or intentional. It was simply whatever they decided to throw at me.
In recent years though I’ve noticed an encouraging trend. The internet, which has always offerred scores of information to begin with, has gone viral. For those of you unfamiliar with this word, it is far from hostile. It basically means that people are using the internet more to communicate ideas, thoughts, articles, humour, and information with one another virally, meaning from person to person, the online version of word of mouth.
Social media offers some very powerful tools for learning. Find someone’s blog who is into something you’re interested about. Follow that blog. Then, follow that author in twitter, or add them in facebook. Odds are they’ll eventually link to something else you’re interested about.
Repeat Process.
This allows for a very focused, directional, and intentional avenue for learning. If you start going down a path that isn’t valuable, or at least enjoyable, for you to digest, then unsubscribe to that blog and trace back a few steps. The number of people out there putting out information, and really good information at that, on almost any subject is growing at an almost dizzying rate. And not just websites posting info, this is people posting information to other people. Even though it exists in cyberspace, it brings community and learning into the same room in a very unique way.
Very enticing.
Now, this is a very parasitic way of looking at the internet. How we can move beyond that and start to give back to the online community is something I don’t default into well, and is something that requires even more intentionality than your intake. More on that later though.
