If there is a promise that we have constantly heard about the Digital Revolution (in addition to the fact that the greater the number of people connected to the Internet the less will be the poverty of a country or region) is that access to information increases the level of knowledge of the people . That is why governments from all corners invest in connectivity and in bringing internet to all its citizens.
We call it “the Information Age”, a stage in which there are more and more people connected to the Internet, more “smart” phones and more prosumers (those who not only consume, but also produce, content). An era in which we should be able to make better decisions because we have the information in the palm of our hands. And yet that promise that was made to us with the internet is not being fulfilled. Quite the opposite. We do not seem to be in the age of information but in the Age of Disinformation
How else can one explain that in a world where one can access any data, validate any information that someone gives and learn from any topic in seconds we are making such extremely wrong decisions?
It only remains to see what happened with the Brexit (and the number of people who voted to “leave” without understanding its implications and now the people who want another vote), or take a look at how Donald Trump has his party ( and the United States) on the verge of collapse at the point of lies, half-truths and stupid things that people believe with a closed eye.
You just have to look at the content on social networks associated with the announcement of the Peace Agreement in Colombia and how they still spread unfounded lies (side and side) or see the power of the Kardashian (and their equivalents in each country) and how it is more important what was x and “famous” that really important announcements in science, space exploration, economy, health, the future, technology, politics, etc. etc., to understand that the Internet is not fulfilling its promise.
You only have to realize the amount of people who still fall into the traps of the prince of nigeria or “like him and Bill Gates will donate $ 1 to this child in Lithuania” to see that it does not seem that people want to learn.
The democratization of technology seems to have “lowered the bar” instead of raising it, it is brutalizing us instead of educating us, it is skewing us (more) instead of allowing us to analyze things from different points of view, it is making us “eat whole” “Instead of validating before swallowing, it is taking us to the level of the lowest link in the chain instead of helping it to be smarter, more educated, more critical and more informed.
And that is the problem. Every day we use more technology, every day we incorporate it more into our tasks and yet, the majority of people still do not want to learn how to use it.