On Writing — a dying art form?

Have you wondered what form of communication is superior — the written word (typed who writes any more) or audio or video ? Is the written word staring at extinction? Are our eyes losing out to be our primal sensing organ? As someone who likes to write, I have often wondered whether writing is a dying art.

If you are reading this you are probably a rare breed for you are supporting me write 😃 (for who reads nowadays, people even listen to audio books, go figure !). Video and audio seemed to have trumped the written word. There is an increasing inclination to listen to an audio clip or watch a video versus reading. You get your news on radio or the tv. You pass your time Watching or listening to all the clips forwarded to you on social media, or scan the pictures on snap chat or Instagram or Pinterest.

Not being a neuro scientist and lacking an understanding of how our cognition works, I can only make conjectures for why this is. Reading requires a lot more brain power and consumes more energy as it probably build connections in our brains as we are reading. Our ability to imbibe the thought from the written word is getting crystallized by some new neurological connection.

A sound byte or a You Tube download is quicker ((requires less time) and requires far less energy to imbibe, but at the same time it is not stretched long enough to get permanently etched in our minds. I think this is because listening or viewing is exposing us to a condensed or refined thought process that we are unable to properly synthesize on our own. The absence of deep thought on the topic and the speed at which we absorb the information appears to be insufficient for forming permanent neurological connections in our mind. For we often move from one sound bite to the next and often can’t remember what we saw on our last video or listened to on radio. It lingers for a little while — short term memory but is never permanently recorded.

So instead of accumulating knowledge as we age we seem to stagnate or deplete for perhaps we are not even using what little we know. How is that good for our future? Imagine the plight of the younger distracted generation that is just beginning to accumulate knowledge or “Jnana”. Using IPADS in elementary school to show an animation of the circulatory system seems like a great step forward, but I seem to remember what I learnt in elementary school because I had to draw it and picture it in my mind as I was doing so.

So lets examine the evolution of this phenomenon and try and understand how we behave, and if it’s worth making some adjustments for our benefit. About a year or two ago, my son shared a link to a blog written by his physics instructor Mark Eichenlaub. You can find his writings on Quora by clicking on the link.

Mark presented a cogent argument on the learning process. He showed that most of us tend to forget a majority of what we learned in class soon after. Here is my interpretation.

It does not matter if we get an A or a B or a C in the class. Why is that? When we learn what is taught to us by memorization or learning the formula we miss out on the most fundamental part of educating ourselves. The true learning happens only when we derive the formula on our own, i.e, synthesizing it in our own. Much like swimming, others can tesch you only so much, we have to make the skill our own in order to keep our head above water. For when we do so, that learning gets embedded in to our neural network. Reading Mark’s blog several years ago was a big “Aha” moment for me.

I think this concept can be used to visualize what happens when we are reading vs listening or watching. During reading our focus is on the word, and as we read, our brain is synthesizing the meaning and developing an understanding. This process perhaps is registering the information permanently in our brain and indexing it for recall later. Compared to listening or video, whilst reading, the amount of information being processed by our faculties is much less, thereby allowing formation of neuro-connections. When listening or watching video more of our brains processing power is being used to process the information coming through. Since the information flow is so much, our cognitive ability takes a back seat.

To continue to enhance our cognitive abilities it would be advisable to keep reading and writing in addition to listening and watching. Outside of school we seldom write. Creating a habit of writing and reading is important to sustain and grow our knowledge.

As multi-media invades the classroom it is critical to ask how it supports learning. It is nice to see a 3D image but it’s important to be able to recreate that in your mind later, if not learning has not happened.

So those who like to “Forward” should do so in moderation. Engage your mind and write your opinions and share your wealth of knowledge. For its to your benefit and those who are part of your network. Our social media interactions based on forwards, and wishing happy birthdays and good mornings and condolence messages eventually will amount to nothing. Sharing your thought and your mind once in a while will power our interactions even if they make us vulnerable. A thought shared is worth a few million bitcoins more than your forwards.