This is the information age [damn it]

[jithrae]

I was recently asked what to do about the fact that our phone book was already packed during a moving day. For context, my girlfriend and I were moving up the street and had given ourselves a month to do it, but had invited a (strong) friend of ours over on the weekend to help move the big stuff. We were trying to get some food in as minimally time

Comments

[cos]

Habit.

Also, just because you found counterexamples doesn't mean it doesn't have "anything to do with" age or exposure - it could be strongly correlated and you'd still find many exceptions. I think it is correlated. But, habit can be learned, so I still with my answer.

[jithrae]

Do you mean habit as in people are habitually lazy, or habit as in, people are trained not to think/act for themselves so they continue or something else entirely (like a nun's habit)?

[cos]

I didn't mean to imply any specific habit. I just meant that whether or not people think to do certain things is based on their habits. Are you used to looking for things on google? Then you'll look for more things on google. It's your habit. Have you only been shown google once or twice, and haven't used it for yourself, and haven't thought about it in months? Then you probably won't think to try google. Lack of habit is a barrier

subtopic: taking initiative

[jithrae]

I'm sure there is a better way to say this, but the part of cos' comment about age having a correlation between the ability to sift through information got me thinking again. I think what I'm really talking about in this post is not just the ability to search, but the ability to go figure things out (e.g. to "take the initiative"). So on a corrallary topic, what is it that differntiates people who will actively seek out solutions to problems and/or act without prompting, from people who will sit idly by while the train/problem/lack-of-information comes rushing at them.

At first glance I'm inclined to agree with cos (assuming he did actually mean this) that it's 'habit.' But I wonder if there's not something more instrinsic in our personalities, possibly something ingrained at a young age, that relates to this.

[yix]

I'm not sure what it is, but I do know it gives me job security. :)

[jithrae]

I get job security from the fact that very few of us (humans) are insane enough to want to understand relatively useless (at least from any sort of measurable biological standpoint) technical arcana about computer related stuff. That doesn't mean it's not frustrating when people are so absurdly clueless, and this absurd cluelessness seems to extend into all areas of life, not just the technical ones.

Do you get frustrated with people who don't have the most basic understanding of card catalogs?

[yix]

Well, I actually probably don't have the most basic understanding of card catalogs.

But actually, I posted my short, flip reply because I had no time before to put more effort into it.

What you describe actually drives me completely bonkers among friends. When I see this behavior in my clients, I tend to take it in stride, but I hold friends to a much higher standard.

A lot of time I don't think it's fear, I think it's people's inability to think creatively about finding information. "but I've always just used the phone book" is a typical example of this sort of thing. The phone book is actually MUCH better for browsing than most of the online phonebook sites I've found. But that doesn't mean that if your first choice isn't available, that there are not a ton of other ways to find the information. That's what gets me.