Something I read linked to an article called Do Kids Have the Right Internet Skills?. The first paragraph reads:

Earlier this year, a Midwest bank manager told me about a youth market survey the bank had conducted on youngsters and technology. The survey revealed that while youngsters were “Internet-savvy” and attracted to mobile banking, when it came to making critical decisions about finance, they weren't so savvy. They relied on word of mouth from their parents and friends—and limited their Internet searches to well-known search engines like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) or Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO)

The article seems to go on to talk about how this isn't sufficient. I couldn't really read the rest because of my knee jerk reaction to this much of it. It's probably not fair to the author and may just be because I was in a meeting all day with my University Senate hearing about budget reductions (so we know that we won't get that money next year either) and "impoundments" (where they take back what they said they would give us, but just once). But I digress.

I think that most people get most of their information from parents, friends and well-known internet search engines. I'll admit that I also get information from some books and from academic journals, but more often than not, I find them by using friends and well-known internet search engines.

One of my favorite things to cite is that Socrates thought that using text was probably a bad idea. Good thing his student didn't listen. My point now is that people learning stuff from their parents and people that they talk to is a fairly long-held tradition that, until the advent of the internet, wasn't likely to change.

OK, I read some more of the article and it's lamenting that students are really bad at choosing key words and that no one is teaching them. Of course we won't be able to teach those skills any time soon since they aren't easily tested on a paper-based multiple-choice test.

But I think this is back to my last question where I wondered what it was I know about doing internet searches and, if I'm better at it than most people, what the skills that I have are and how and whether I can help other people to gain those skills as well.

This problem has creeped into my thoughts more and more lately. Perhaps I'll have the answer in a couple of days. :-)