It’s really counterintuitive, in your previous post there is an implication that the harder thing is to do, the smarter it makes you, and therefore more preferred it is. It seems as a stronger claim then mere “being locked in attention trap of facebook feed/videogames is bad”.
But obviously (for me) it’s better to make some content easier to comprehend, not harder, how making it easier can make a content worse? Like, I did a couple of things to increase my ability to gather/generate information (learned English, studied fast typing, use automatic grammar check), do you think those have a negative side effect?
Can you please elaborate what specific criteria you use to decide did some specific content makes you dumber or smarter? It’s quite difficult to trace the exact imipact of one blog post to your life.
I think there’s a sweet spot for difficulty. Too easy and you’re not exercising your mind. Too hard and you’re not learning because everything is incomprehensible.
Like, I did a couple of things to increase my ability to gather/generate information (learned English, studied fast typing, use automatic grammar check), do you think those have a negative side effect?
You mention learning English so I think I’m in the same boat as you here. I’m a native English speaker so for me the rules here apply only to English. When I’m improving my Chinese, anything that makes things easier to comprehend helps (except translations). I don’t place any restrictions on Chinese media except that it doesn’t use English anywhere.
By “fast typing” do you mean typing practice videogames? These also helped me learn to touch type. I don’t find any problem with using an automatic spellchecker either. I don’t see any negative side effects for these tools listed here.
Can you please elaborate what specific criteria you use to decide did some specific content makes you dumber or smarter?
I don’t have specific criteria, nor a single overarching theory (yet). I figured out the effects of different mediums through trial and error. I’d cut certain things from my life for a while (usually at least a week) and then afterward I’d review how much I’ve been learning. I did this over-and-over again until I got a feel for the medium-term impacts of different mediums. The specific criteria I use is simply “observed effect”.
If you mean “how do I observe whether a behavior pattern is making me smarter or dumber?” then I can’t answer any better than “subjectively”. I’d review I’d learned and how my overall behavior changed. If the observable effect was large enough of an improvement I’d consider removing certain kinds of media.
It’s really counterintuitive, in your previous post there is an implication that the harder thing is to do, the smarter it makes you, and therefore more preferred it is. It seems as a stronger claim then mere “being locked in attention trap of facebook feed/videogames is bad”.
But obviously (for me) it’s better to make some content easier to comprehend, not harder, how making it easier can make a content worse? Like, I did a couple of things to increase my ability to gather/generate information (learned English, studied fast typing, use automatic grammar check), do you think those have a negative side effect?
Can you please elaborate what specific criteria you use to decide did some specific content makes you dumber or smarter? It’s quite difficult to trace the exact imipact of one blog post to your life.
I think there’s a sweet spot for difficulty. Too easy and you’re not exercising your mind. Too hard and you’re not learning because everything is incomprehensible.
You mention learning English so I think I’m in the same boat as you here. I’m a native English speaker so for me the rules here apply only to English. When I’m improving my Chinese, anything that makes things easier to comprehend helps (except translations). I don’t place any restrictions on Chinese media except that it doesn’t use English anywhere.
By “fast typing” do you mean typing practice videogames? These also helped me learn to touch type. I don’t find any problem with using an automatic spellchecker either. I don’t see any negative side effects for these tools listed here.
I don’t have specific criteria, nor a single overarching theory (yet). I figured out the effects of different mediums through trial and error. I’d cut certain things from my life for a while (usually at least a week) and then afterward I’d review how much I’ve been learning. I did this over-and-over again until I got a feel for the medium-term impacts of different mediums. The specific criteria I use is simply “observed effect”.
If you mean “how do I observe whether a behavior pattern is making me smarter or dumber?” then I can’t answer any better than “subjectively”. I’d review I’d learned and how my overall behavior changed. If the observable effect was large enough of an improvement I’d consider removing certain kinds of media.