Bananas and Books: Extinction within 10 years?

Who is shaping the information we consume and the ways in which we get it?  Why do we make the choices we do?  And what is going to happen to our decision making as we rely more and more on potentially manipulated albeit readily available information?

Do a Google search for just about anything these days and what do you get? A Wikipedia page. This is what happened to me when, in search of something inspired to write about bananas, I got lazy. I have bananas. They are 25 feet away from me. They are yellow, overripe, speckled and on my kitchen counter. Did I get up and touch, smell or taste a banana? No. I performed a Google search. I opened a Wikipedia page.

Despite some initial skepticism of the wiki's information, curiosity inspired me to further investigate the implication that the banana's extinction was an imminent possibility. According to a BBC science article, Cavendish bananas (the most common in our kitchens) are at risk of extinction. Their lack of genetic diversity leaves them unprotected against crop-compromising diseases, meaning that, if they are not completely eradicated, their numbers may be reduced so that a different species of banana would have to be commercially available worldwide.

What does this mean in an age of designer fruit and limitless possibilities? Where does the poor endangered banana fit? After watching the CBC documentary Food of the Future, I'm not so sure.  In addition to an interesting look at the molecular gastronomy revolution, Food of the Future provided some great insight into the pluot - known to some as science's answer to Mother Nature's banana.  A pluot - part plum, part apricot - is one of several registered trademark (Zaiger Genetics Inc.) hybrid fruits on the way to a produce aisle near you. But why are pluots, apriums and peacotums better than plain old bananas? Some argue they are the best of many worlds combined; they are bred for ideal taste, texture, transportability and nutritional value. I can't help but wonder, though, who is telling us to eat these pluots, and why are we listening?

The same questions surround our consumption of information: why, when bananas are in front of us, do we Google? Probably for the same reason people will buy pluots: because Google is there; it's new, mysterious and easy; and somewhere along the way it was presented to us as a valuable resource. If Google and Wikipedia, however, are the pluots of the "Information Age," what, if anything, is wrong with the banana, and where in our consumption of information do the metaphorical bananas fit? Are Google and Wikipedia leading us to the extinction of other forms of information that are simply not equipped to compete? Like bananas, is it truly possible that books will be extinct within ten years?

A high school teacher recently told me that his students do not understand the difference between a source of information and a tool that enables one to access information. It seems ridiculous to someone my age to cite in the reference list of a scientific paper "Ottawa Public Library" as a source. Because I walked into the library and found a book doesn't mean I've done anything other than find a starting place for my research. Saying I found somewhere to look doesn't teach me anything, nor does it give my argument any credibility. I need to read a book and then give the author of that book credit for any information I choose to support my argument or refute another. Why then is it that one may ask someone a measly 12 years my junior where he or she found information and the reply is "Google"? Why are our children clueless to the fact that Google is the tool and not the source; the search engine providing us the pathway to further information and not actually where the information originates? Why haven't we taught them the difference? And why do they automatically accept what they find on the Internet without questioning its source, validity and accuracy?

Do young people know that Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate? If one takes the time to search Wikipedia for "wikipedia" (the page with arguably the highest likelihood of being accurate), one would know that anyone can edit the information stored in Wikipedia. Friends of mine who are much more technically savvy than I (and certainly far less suspicious) tell me that Wikipedia relies on the good samaritan approach - if you know something is wrong, correct it. There are, theoretically, more informed than ill-informed people and their role is to police the ill-informed wiki contributors, thereby ensuring the free flow of accurate information.

But is this really the case?  I don't consider myself an expert on many things; however, some years back I wrote a thesis on a delightfully obscure medieval play for which I gained a plethora of remarkably uncommon knowledge. Embroiled in a debate about the accuracy of Wikipedia, I searched for something obscure from my research days.  What I discovered was brief and appallingly inaccurate.  In a later installment of the aforementioned debate, I decided to tap into my friend the astonishingly brilliant and quirky science PhD student's wealth of knowledge. I asked him to search for the most obscure and complicated thing he could fathom. Once again, we discovered some startling errors.

I am ashamed to say we did nothing.  If, as informed perusers (or police?) of the wiki, it is our unstated duty to correct the inaccuracies, why did we do nothing?  I chose not to update the page for several reasons. First, I'm not sure we have the right to edit one another's posts, as misinformed as they may be. Second, I am more than skeptical of the Wikipedia premise and I did not want to participate in something I feel so unclear about. Third, if someone else decides what I have contributed is wrong, they can just edit it, so what's the point?

I fear, though, it's a "what's the point?" attitude that will perpetuate these problems. Are there parents out there who, when faced with the challenge of reading to and teaching their children, say "what's the point?"  Sadly, there are. But can we blame them? Can they compete with a world of instant information, rapid responses and immediate gratification? Can the library? Is it just too much effort to remind someone to consult an encyclopedia, edited and compiled by qualified professionals (many of whom are professors), instead of clicking a mouse three times and searching Wikipedia? As Jeremy Clarkson wonders, "Why buy an encyclopedia when there's Wikipedia (apart from the fact that everything on Wikipedia is wrong)?"

We are raising a generation of people who will never know a world without computers, MP3 players, digital cameras, instant messengers, email, cellular telephones, text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and the list goes on. While in many ways this technology simplifies things, it also makes them dangerously complex. We are conditioned to take advantage of all opportunities afforded to us; if something is there to make things easier, why not? Of course when I was 14 and many people began to get email addresses my family got one and I started using it to correspond with my friends. And of course this was exciting and helpful. But it wasn't so easy. We had to use dial-up modems and email was much slower. The gratification was far from instant, there was more work involved and the process itself was less automated. It was also new, which means it was not as easily taken for granted. Technology was an addition, an aid, but it wasn't everything. It was certainly not an extension of ourselves. These days, it seems to be everything; always available, always with us. Therein lies the blessing and the curse of technology: the more we rely on it and the more it is commonplace, the less we see anything beyond it.

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