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Living Life in Fast-Forward
ctwxman writes "A year and a half ago my boss approached me, asking me to finish some college courses to get certification in what I've been doing for the past 20+ years. The courses are offered by Mississippi State University. Since I live in Connecticut, I am taking my lessons on DVD and videocassette with tests, quizzes and helpful advice from TA's online. It didn't take me long to realize how s-l-o-w the whole lecture process was. But with WinDVD4, I started ramping up the speed. It didn't take long to get to 2x normal speed. Other than the lectures taking half the time, I didn't miss anything. Yes, the speech is a little clipped, but these are college lectures. There are no speed demons delivering at the MSU lectern. I posted my 'discovery' to our online student bulletin board and found many other students were scared of the idea. But, for me wearing headphones (important I think), these hyper lessons are just as good as watching at normal speed. Now, The New York Times (sacrifice of eldest child required) has legitimized my claim with this article showing how and why others are rapidly jumping on the high speed watching bandwagon."
I think that one of the reasons why you may have been able to digest the information at this faster speed is because you're already well-experienced in that area. Naturally, anyone who's been working with X for a number of years is already familiar with most of the concepts. Me, I could easily watch most computer-related lectures in double-speed and absorb 99% of the information easily. Change subjects, though, and the increased speed might be more of a hindrance.
Society is moving too fast as it is - and you want to speed it up even more.
Careful thought and consideration is an important aspect of learning critical thinking - not how much you can cram into your brain at one sitting.
I see two things happening:
1. People are quick to jump to incorrect conclusions more than I remember in the past.
2. People don't stop and smell the roses in their relentless pursuit of *?
Reminds me of a parable:
A young bull and an old bull are at the top of a hill, looking down on the herd of cows.
The young bull says to the old bull, "lets run down there a meet a cow!"
The old bull responds, "lets walk down there and meet them all."
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Some people can only learn in a traditional (i.e. long boring lecture) setting. That's the way it's done in the US system in public schools and the majority of private schools so kids get trained to learn that way by default.
Personally, there are some subjects in which I need to be -taught-, not just given the info. I'm not naturally good with math, so I need extra attention and to go to every lecture. Humanities and social sciences come easily for me and I can learn those completely on my own. It also helps that I genuinely like humanities and social sciences. Since I don't care for math and hard science, I need extra structure in the process of learning it to make sure that I "get it."