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My mother's from France. Growing up her family's business was agriculture. They didn't have smartphones, TVs. This meant they'd spend a lot of their time talkin

by loceng 9y ago

My mother's from France. Growing up her family's business was agriculture. They didn't have smartphones, TVs. This meant they'd spend a lot of their time talking with others, especially people older than you - and that's how you learn critical thinking. I recently saw a video interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hUOUNZrbBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hUOUNZrbBg - with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Clinton commented he doesn't know how people do it these days with all the distractions for consuming and not engagement - and that he learned his thinking skills heavily through family dinner every night.

learc83 9y ago
People have said the exact thing about novels, comic books, television, and telephones. Socrates even complained about writing. Scientific American published a screed against the negative effects of chess in the 1850s. The devices and distractions of every new generation are the harbingers of the apocalypse for the previous one.
- loceng 9y ago
  Well, that's interesting. All of those do present different levels of engagement though. The phone - only voice and no facial or body queues. Novels - obviously no audio and no opportunity to engage, and comic books - less use of imagination required than a novel. Television being the most like real-life, most stimulating as actually watching something in the real-world ... designed to be more engaging visually and with sound than stimulating with interesting thought (most of time - entertainment vs educational/learning). Writing too, perhaps if people you learned the most from and listened to the most from were very well-spoken - and perhaps Socrates understood the value of the listeners/readers being present for engagement, whereby if someone doesn't understand a point or wants to challenge it, they can instantly. It does seem like all of these evolutions and innovations of humanity and language, communication, are making the natural world a less healthy place.

by loceng 9y ago

learc83 9y ago

People have said the exact thing about novels, comic books, television, and telephones. Socrates even complained about writing. Scientific American published a screed against the negative effects of chess in the 1850s. The devices and distractions of every new generation are the harbingers of the apocalypse for the previous one.

loceng 9y ago
Well, that's interesting. All of those do present different levels of engagement though. The phone - only voice and no facial or body queues. Novels - obviously no audio and no opportunity to engage, and comic books - less use of imagination required than a novel. Television being the most like real-life, most stimulating as actually watching something in the real-world ... designed to be more engaging visually and with sound than stimulating with interesting thought (most of time - entertainment vs educational/learning). Writing too, perhaps if people you learned the most from and listened to the most from were very well-spoken - and perhaps Socrates understood the value of the listeners/readers being present for engagement, whereby if someone doesn't understand a point or wants to challenge it, they can instantly. It does seem like all of these evolutions and innovations of humanity and language, communication, are making the natural world a less healthy place.