Information junkie

From my last post, from all the news articles I link to, I think I probably don't have to point out to any great extent that I am an information junkie. I've got to have a book, a newspaper, or a magazine with me at all times. I actually feel a kind of burning discomfort if I go into a fast food restaurant to eat without a newspaper to read.

To some extent, the modern age has turned us all into information junkies. My daughter is always looking up pictures and information about whales. My elder daughter spends a lot of time reading about certain art forms that she is interested in. My wife has a healthy disdain for information gluttony, but even she got caught up in all the Papal funeral coverage of a few weeks ago. Anyone with the Internet has at their fingertips access to more information than was contained in the entire library of Alexandria. Heck, just check out WikiPedia!

So what did people do before all of this recorded and written knowledge was available?My guess is they spent more time learning it for themselves. When we go camping in the summer, I can't help but notice how unskilled some campers are. They don't know how to keep raccoons out of their garbage, how to start a proper fire, or even much about how to set up their campsite (other than the tents, which come with instructions.)

We've become very disconnected from practical experience. Even though apprenticeship is still a part of many college educations, a lot of work these days is done on the computer.

I notice that in the business I am in. Printing was one of the last things to modernize. Even though I am a computer programmer, I joined the industry just as the revolution took hold. I learned how to burn metal plates, blueprints, shoot PMTs, and make rubies. These techniques had been how printing had been done for a century - Henry Luce would recognize it. I knew, as programs like PageMaker took hold, why they did things the way they did - the angles that the hatching of line screens took, because I'd worked with the analog technology PageMaker mimicked.

Now the print business is full of people who know all about line screens, can tell you the math behind the line screen angles in a PostScript or PDF file - but don't have any clue, would not have a clue - how to operate the equipment on which these concepts were invented. When I go to Upper Canada village and see the pretend-19th century woman in the print shop, I understand the letterpress she uses to print posters and the town newspaper.

I wonder how many of today's newer people would? Have we given up all our practical knowledge for a universe of book knowledge?