If you feel you are intelligent and smart; and stand out from the rest of the crowd, you are mistaken, my friend, because intellectuality is no longer a rare commodity these days. Thanks to the overflowing sea of digital information that is further churned by artificial intelligence (AI), our minds and brains need a pause to cope and evolve again.
Daily, we let our minds loose to the infinite social media feeds, the vicious scroll loop of short videos and most of our digital errands being taken care of by the AI. We hoard it and pass on this excessive information overload without any verification, just to stay relevant or not to sound unintelligent.
A very similar can be drawn from deteriorating our physical health with junk food and not exercising. Likewise the ease of access to problem solving is making our brains rot and not drilling our minds towards reasoning and deep thinking, is bringing a doom of zombie mindsets where we are immersed in our devices yet can’t navigate basic life issues.
Every other day, we stumble on examples where people fail to take action to help someone when in crisis or danger that requires basic human intervention and not any training skill. Yet, they are quick to record and post to seek attention and grab likes. This is seriously thought-provoking; whereas humanity, we stand or how far we are falling apart?
The least we are using our brains to think and create by ourselves, be it school or college assignments, or writing a simple invite or an email, we are becoming mentally crippled. We are losing track of sorting the relevant from the irrelevant info; we are just consuming beyond our mental capacities. The brain is not designed to only consume but to strike a candid balance of consuming from all sorts of environments, offline like home, family, workplace, culture, colleagues, friends, acquaintances, travel, as well as reliable online portals and then generate a groomed and profound perspective about managing life’s affairs in every realm.
Conversely, there are folks who are utilising the digital tools and their mental aptitudes in an amazingly balanced way to derive the best output towards solving the issues or creating something meaningful and powerful; and adding value to society and the community. We have elite professionals, skilled workers, as well as nation builders who are working hard and smart and contributing to their best. Unfortunately, such folks are few; and by and large masses are distracted in the name of intellectual obesity.
AI is here, ready to bring breakthroughs and revolutions. Think about how we can master it to resolve the issues and create better opportunities instead of wavering and relying on superficial and low-key modes of subconscious passive digital consumption. Exert and discipline your brain towards more rigorous mental challenges, research and verify information through books and trusted platforms; and become an active, responsible consumer and thereby a genuine contributor.
As youth in particular, we need to reflect and set our targets and vision. Since distraction is prevalent, if we set the focus of our life’s camera right, we will definitely get the candid pictures. We need to heal and overcome our addiction to prying into others and reform this distorted mindset of information overload consumption by staying authentic and improving our own skill sets and abilities.
Remember, information can never be equated to knowledge and reflection. Correspondingly, intellectuality is not wisdom!
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