fuck yeah Synesthesia

Facebook Questions: What it Means for Education

“Facebook Questions, a beta product that lets you pose questions like these to the Facebook community. With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.

“Facebook Questions helps you tap into the collective knowledge of the more than 500 million people on Facebook. For example, if you’re vacationing in Costa Rica and want to know the best places to surf, you can use Facebook Questions to get answers from nearby surfing enthusiasts. Because questions will also appear to your friends and their friends, you’ll receive answers that are more personalized to you.

“To ask a question to the community, just click the “Ask Question” button at the top of the homepage. You can also ask questions about your friends from their profiles, similarly to how you would post on their Walls.”

http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=411795942130

http://www.facebook.com/questions/

http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/facebook-questions/

Is it a new, easier way to cheat in school? Yes, of course. However, “cheating” has become an antiquated term with the rise of the internet, or at least its definition needs to change.

Future generations need to place less emphasis on learning facts and more emphasis on learning how to think critically, communicate effectively, collaborate, implement ideas, think creatively, respect each other, lead, etc. Although learning facts is still important, future generations will have all the world’s information in their pockets only a click away.

Our education system places to much emphasis on punishing students for cheating, whereas, by doing that, it is essentially punishing students for collaborating, teaching students that collaboration is bad.

If we expect to reap the fruits of the educational revolution that our country so desperately needs, we need to re-think our relations with the internet, social media, and cell phones.

Most of my ideas here are taken and inspired from Dr. Michael Wesch. Here’s one of his videos correlating with what I talked about. It is a truly incredible and informative video that may “throw your assumptions about education out the window.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s

Is it just me, or does it seem funny that modern psychology developed in parallel with the industrial world?

Is it just me, or does it seem funny that modern psychology developed in parallel with the industrial world?

The industrial revolution sprouted cities, which bred anonymous, individual lifestyles. People’s interactions with each other decreased, which decreased theory of mind abilities (empathy abilities).

Could this nurtured lack of empathy have increased people’s curiosity for what goes on in other people’s minds? The anonymous, urban lifestyle, which gave rise to individualism, decreased people’s ability to put themselves in others shoes, and paradoxically caused people to become more curious about what goes on in other people’s minds.

Of course, psychology is dependent on human theory of mind. But what happens to the field of psychology as we become less and less able to empathize?

Today, the internet is adding to the level of anonymity in our culture, increasing the physical distance between us, and creating to ephemeral relationships (http://bit.ly/gOB9bn). Individualism is sure to rise, as well, since people have access to the world in the palm of their hands. One does not need to learn from a teacher, they have Wikipedia. One does not need sex from another, they have porn. Social lives mutated into Facebook. Everything in Maslow’s entire Hierarchy of Needs can be received alone.

Future of humanity: superficial replacements for human needs and poor theory of mind.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a theory of motivation. What’s going to happen to everyone’s motivation? I know mine has plummeted. Causative or not, it’s intriguing.