Information Is Free. Wisdom Isn't.
Remember the days when someone asked a question and you actually had to use your brain to find the answer? Now we just Google it. It’s a privilege to have access to information like we do today. I can look up Premier League stats on the fly. I can figure out how to change my own oil. I can learn to improve my squat form. And yet, I wonder about the implications of its unlimited access.
How is it actually impacting us?
If I had a thesis for this post, it would be:
Unlimited access to information causes people to mistake confidence for competence and ultimately regard knowledge as more valuable than wisdom.
I think several factors contribute to this misunderstanding. Here’s my defense:
The Peer-Reviewed Decision Making Process Elevates Influence over Validity.
With unlimited access to information comes the necessity for some way to validate it, which is why I believe we’ve become such a peer-reviewed society. We rely on reviews to find the best restaurant, the professor to enroll with, or the pediatrician we should choose. Inadvertently, this sometimes means that rather than the most qualified person guiding the decision making, the most influential person sets the standard. Unfortunately, when validity is superseded by influence, decisions get muddied.
“When people mistake confidence for competence, they end up valuing style over substance. The most charismatic person in the group is the most likely to get away with a flawed argument. The most polished speaker in the room is the most likely to get away with being unprepared. ”
Input-Output Orientation Elevates the Fear of Failure.
We live in a world that is highly input-output oriented. I put forth effort, I get a result. It’s contributed to a lot of progress in our society. However, this industrial revolution has bled over to how we view ourselves and others. Several companies try to implement methodologies that assume people can be automated, too. I used to work at a call center where burnout was common and turnover was high because people’s natural limitations simply can’t be bypassed with automation. Everyone has a cap and mine differs from the next person. But our love for measurable productivity and efficiency can also more readily expose failure. If I did A, I should have gotten B. What happens when I don’t? What does that mean about my parenthood, my competence, my likeability, etc.?
So what’s the next step forward? It seems pretty intuitive to seek more information to boost my confidence, right? But it does nothing to solve my lack of experience in knowing when and how to use it wisely. The problem is if we can’t admit what we don’t know, we also prevent ourselves from learning it. And just because we know about something doesn’t mean we’ll apply it well. If we’re too afraid to step into experience, we’ll continue the never-ending cycle of mistaking confidence for competence and be overly confident in our inexperience.
“Ignorance becomes a double curse for the unskilled. They make many mistakes because they don’t have the skills they need, and their lack of skill makes it impossible to recognize when they make mistakes.”
What I’m really searching for is wisdom. I want to know how and when to apply information. To do this, I must first gather the information and then step into experience. But I must also be willing to fail. Wisdom is hard to find. But it’s hidden in the gap of knowledge and experience and in the ebb and flow of failure and success. Unless I step into the tension of that gap, my fear of failure will never give me the wisdom I lack.
