“Consuming information is just an illusion of learning”
Consuming information is not learning. Anna Tebelius Bodin, educator and speaker with over a thousand talks on learning and how our brains work, is very clear. The problem is that information consumption might feel like learning, but actual learning require that we pay attention and keep our focus.
Our brains need to digest a lot of information, and only a very small percentage of all that information actually stays in our long-term memory. In the age of information overload, many of us make the mistake and think that just listen to a podcast or a talk is the same thing as learning.
But it isn’t. We need to pay attention in order to learn. It’s not enough to hear something - you need to listen. It’s not enough to decode text. You need to understand what you are reading. Otherwise, it’s just gives you an illusion of learning.
During her talks and workshops Anna Tebelius Bodin, sometimes give her audience short tests on what she has just been talking about. And this comes as a real eye opener for most people. Most of us overestimate how much we learn by just listening. It’s when we have to express ourselves, we realize what we actually know. Or don’t know.
