Books are only the first step...

I live in America and America like many other countries has benefited from the advancements of technology, namely the world wide web. It is extremely simple for me to find information about thousands of different topics by simply typing my heart's desire into The Google Machine. This is a wonderful thing and sort of a crippling thing.

All this easy access to information in the form of PDFs, articles, blogs, books, ebooks etc creates an urgency to consume it all. I know that there's another book with even more information so I need to hurry through this one to get to the next one... And the one after that... And the one after that.

Whenever I search for a topic online or even at the library I feel like if I just keep piling the books up beside me that I will find the perfect one that will tell me everything I need to know in the exact manner I want to learn it. And if I discard a book then that's surely the one that had the perfect information I need.

Are humans really ready for the amount of information that's thrown at us each day. I understand that our brains can technically handle it by simply ignoring information that isn't important at a particular moment. But is the rest of our body ready? We are naturally active creatures and consuming all that information requires us to site still for long periods of time.

I read an article the other day about unplugging for 30 days and how people spend more time chatting with "friends" on Facebook than they do with real life friends. It was also about the benefits of giving up certain passive activities, like watching tv and surfing the web, for more active activities like hiking and spending quality time with friends and family.

Despite the fact that I love to read and there's nothing more seducing for me but a new book, some hot chocolate and a blanket I realize that humans were made to collect information using our entire bodies, not just our eyes. We have a sense of touch, smell and hearing for a reason. They all work together to collect a more complete set of data for us to learn about our surroundings and about life.

Growing up we weren't really taught to gain information using our entire body. Boys who couldnt sit still during class were labeled troublemakers or worse ADD. We were made to sit at our desks memorizing dates and names. Field trips were almost non-existent toward the end of my school years. So now that we are *all growed up* we have to remind ourselves that we have eyes, ears, mouths and hands that can do more than write spelling words 20 times.

I am not saying to put down your favorite book or stop reading this blog. I'm saying that reading about things online or in books is just one part of learning. I'm also saying that the prominent way you learn information might not even be the best way for you. So after, or while, you read a book about the Civil War why not have a chat with a historian, or participate in a reenactment.

You will learn far more engaging your entire body instead of only just your eyes.