Since we can use electronic devices in school to take notes, some of my classmates—included myself occasionally—tend to use class time for other tasks or to read about something that does interest them, ignoring the teacher. That was the case with a friend sitting next to me. We were in history class, and he was in front of his laptop, neglecting the class to read the list of writers whose outstanding ingenuity had allowed them to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Meanwhile, the teacher was explaining the process of the Spanish transition to democracy. At first glance, it might seem like just an act of rudeness. However, I believe that more conclusions can be drawn from this situation.
My friend believes in the importance of general culture. He loves reading Wikipedia articles on various topics, people, and concepts that he would be unaware of if it were not for that wonderful free online encyclopedia, which has provided him with plenty of information on a wide variety of topics. Sometimes this may be beneficial. On one occasion, he gave me a long list of cultural and historical facts about a Japanese city; I did not even know that it existed, proof of this is the fact that I cannot remember its name.
Nevertheless, one must remember that the practice of recalling facts is not parallel to intelligence. Because we have the internet at our disposal, any individual, regardless of their level of knowledge on a subject, can look up any specific fact in a matter of seconds; and they could also memorize it just as quickly if they apply the right techniques. The accumulation of countless facts is a little relevant task if it does not take into account the ultimate purpose of all knowledge: to produce new ideas that will eventually build new knowledge.
Yet, I do not wish to advocate for a purely pragmatic perspective on knowledge; I believe that, from time to time, delving into information that might initially seem to be useless for our studies or work can actually be quite helpful. However, what benefit could I get from knowing that on September 13, 1923, Primo de Rivera staged a coup d’état against the Spanish government if I do not understand the reasons that caused it? If we do not understand the relationships between the facts that we learn, we will be using our memory in a superficial way, without exploring all its potential.
Memory serves us to retain certain meaningful facts with which we can make a wide network of links that, at length, will allow us to reach a deep comprehension of the topic that we want to learn. Moreover, once we do this, we will find out that we can remember many of those facts in a natural way, almost involuntarily. Ultimately, this will lead us to conceive new ideas and, thus, propose new perspectives about that topic: instead of being passive consumers, we will contribute to its general understanding.
I want to clarify that I have nothing against my friend. In fact, I do like him very much; he is one of my closest friends and I always wish him the best. But I think that evaluating our own actions and the actions of others is a good practice for our day-to-day life.