Mass of Amateurization

Isolation used to dominate cultures due to the difficulties of communicating, traveling, and understanding each other. Now, information has flooded the earth to the point where there is almost nowhere that you can go to escape the inundation. Everyone has an opinion, whether good or bad, and we have to filter through that the sea of trash to find the truly worthwhile treasures. This has made our problem, the problem of mass amateurization. Instead of a few professionals giving us advice and services, hundreds and even thousands of amateurs feed us there thoughts. The old often look to the young to help them with all the new technology, but even the youth are no more than users, limited in their knowledge and abilities. We can not spread ourselves too thin that we don't even know more than the superficial things that we are doing; we can not fall completely to amateurism. We have to keep a balance; we have to filter what comes our way and be active participants, not idle users. Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn, captivate and distract their users past their own beneficial usefulness. The power that used to be held by a few: communication, publication, specialization; is substituted by millions of semi-reliable sources. This mass of new sources, however, has enabled many wonderful gems to be placed before the world. We need to find those gems, and strive to become producers of quality items, and not just consumers of mediocre junk.