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For me, it's all about focus. The internet brings you anything but focus. Our generation have every learning capabilities except focused mind and focus is the i
by raindropm 7y ago
For me, it's all about focus. The internet brings you anything but focus. Our generation have every learning capabilities except focused mind and focus is the important key to learn anything substantially. Yet our attention are fragmented, shattered, and being manipulated everyday by the internet and social media.
The nature of internet is always distracting. Even while you are reading something, you unconsciously thinking about other thing you might do, in a most frictionless way possible -- just a click away. The book, reading in quiet environment, cut that distraction off completely (I mean, technically you can think about hundreds of thing too, but it's not just a click, tap or swipe away)
I used to read tons of article I save in my Pocket app all day, which itself miles better than junk content on social media of course, but even then, at the end of the day I cannot tell myself what I really learn at all — everything feels, rushed, shallow, distracted. I don't know, I found myself never have real 'focus' when I read online, even what I read is good.
Back to your question, IMO, one good books worth more than hundreds of (sometimes marketing-induced) online articles out there. Also, those 'cutting edge' trend is just that, a 'trend'. Thing that just got popular for whatever reason at certain point of time. It comes and goes quickly than you will ever remember. Most trend dies away after a short while and you don't missing anything at all my friend. If that trend is actually good or important, then you'll see it in one way or another anyway, when all the dust settle — the same with all the "news" out there. You don't have to know them at all and still perfectly fine.
On the contrary, good book with good content always stand the test of time. New doesn't always mean good and old doesn't always mean outdated, especially things about how human think about something. You can still learn a lot from wisdom in the past, that doesn't existed in today's fragmented, always-on environment.