Information Consumption and Knowledge Gain: A Gen Zer’s Perspective during COVID-19
How I’ve consumed information so far during COVID-19
Original post: https://medium.com/@mspiro3/information-consumption-and-knowledge-gain-a-gen-zers-perspective-during-covid-19-1c6af099901f
I was born in 1999 — making me part of Gen Z. I am currently a junior in college.
I love learning and my intellectual curiosity is something that drives me every day. I love sports. I love technology and startups. Family and friends will always be what is most important to me.
I’ve been isolating in my house for 34 days now — like pretty much everyone else. I recently thought it would be interesting to observe and analyze my information consumption patterns during this time. I’ve highlighted some of my key findings, thoughts, and observations in this post.
Some quick stats
Over the past ~5 weeks, I have:
Read 2 books (High Growth Handbook and The Boys in the Boat)
Watched a 20-lecture Intro to Psychology (PSYC 11) course taught by Yale Professor Paul Bloom (I watched this on Youtube)
Listened to over 50 podcast episodes (The Twenty Minute VC is my go-to podcast. I’ve listened to the last 92 episodes — dating back to last April — and many of the episodes from before then. I’ve also recently been listening to the a16z Podcast, Ted Talks Daily, and Village Global’s Venture Stories)
Read countless Medium posts about startups, venture capital, psychology, etc.
Had numerous phone calls with venture capitalists, startup founders, and students interested in the tech and startup world
Scrolled through my Twitter feed hundreds, if not thousands, of times, consuming information in a variety of ways
Read an abundance of articles about COVID-19, the stock market, the music industry, sports, the future of startups, etc. sent to me via texts and group messages by family and friends (I’ve then had some super engaging conversations (mainly over text) with my brother, dad, sister’s boyfriend — I don’t know if there’s another name for that — and friends about these articles)
Read a number of daily/weekly newsletters from a variety of sources
Consumed information in a variety of other forms and from a variety of other sources that I do not even realize because they happen passively (For example, I probably still go to espn.com 10X a day, out of habit, even though there are no live sports)
A little intro to my (normal) knowledge and information consumption habits
I have always had a love for learning. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fond of learning new ideas, trying new projects, and testing hypotheses. My favorite way of learning, however, has always been learning from other people.
Nothing compares to the immense knowledge that you can gain by meeting new people with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives from you. There is nothing like meeting someone new who instantly strikes you as amazing.
The people that when you meet, you say, “Wow.” I remember earlier this fall, my friend Roshan and I went over to the Cortex area in St. Louis to meet with Blake Marggraff (CEO of CareSignal). Roshan and I both left the conversation with the same reaction — expectedly — “Wow.”
Blake’s intelligence, desire to solve the problems his business was after, relentlessness, and eagerness to help Roshan and I learn — all while being a twenty-something-year-old founder and CEO of a venture-backed startup — left Roshan and I in awe.
These past few weeks have made it increasingly hard — well, pretty much impossible — to have these in-person interactions that can leave you learning so much. Video conferences and phone calls undoubtedly still allow you to learn a lot from the other parties, but it is really difficult to observe the same sense of passion, confidence, and commitment that you can see when you meet someone in person. (If anyone is working on something in this space — something that makes a virtual conversation seem more face-to-face and in-person, please reach out to me. I’m interested in learning more!)
Aside from learning from others — face-to-face, over the phone, or via video conference — there are obviously an abundance of other ways for people to learn an immense amount of information.
Books
The first thing that pops into my mind are books. Books are undoubtedly one of the best ways to learn. Books essentially combine all of an author’s thoughts and knowledge about something into one place, allowing you — the reader — to acquire this same information and learn. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, books are a great way to learn. But, books are not the best way of gaining knowledge for everyone.
I have never really been a big reader. For much of elementary school, I had trouble sitting still and reading books. This continued into middle school, too. Over the past few years, I have tried to make myself read books more often. I have succeeded, but I still find it difficult — and, frankly, sometimes uncomfortable — to sit down and read a book.
Whether it is something I was born with, a result of our generation’s constant need for instant gratification, or something else, I sometimes find it difficult to sit down and read a book for several hours at a times. When I do read books, I generally set a timer on my phone for 15–20 minutes, read for that period, take a short break, and repeat, for about an hour at a time.
(Here’s a list of some of my favorite reads from 2019: https://twitter.com/mspiro3/status/1210608071619284992)
I enjoy reading books because of the incredible content that many of them contain, but I just sometimes find it difficult for me to do so. I have spoken with many of my friends — all Gen Zers — who share this feeling, too.
While Gen Zers may not read as many books as previous generations — and they may indeed read more books! I haven’t actually looked into data regarding this. I am just basing this off my personal experience and what I have gathered from friends and other people around me — I would argue that we still absorb an extensive amount of information — mainly in other forms.
Sitting down and reading a book may be difficult for us Gen Zers, but it is super easy and convenient for me to open the Medium app on my iPhone, find a post, sit down for 10–15 minutes, and read, consuming information in a way that was not previously available to prior generations.
Medium
Platforms such as Medium enable individuals to share their ideas, thoughts, knowledge, and perspectives. At the same time, these platforms allow readers to consume information in a more convenient, might I even say (in some cases), more user-friendly manner than more traditional forms of learning — such as books.
I find myself on Medium several times a week looking through posts, mainly about startups, technology, psychology, venture capital, and other related topics.
I scroll through Twitter several times a day. My Twitter feed is dominated by venture capitalists, startup founders, tech journalists, and sports accounts. I do not interact with my followers often, however, I learn a ton from scrolling through my feed and reading their Tweets.
Twitter is a platform like no other. Through Twitter, I have direct access to the thoughts and ideas of the people I follow, mainly individuals who are way smarter than me, with much, much more experience than I have, and who are experts in their respective fields. It is difficult to quantify the information I consume and the knowledge I gain through Twitter, but it is undoubtedly incredibly rewarding to be able to open the Twitter app and read Tweets and threads from individuals such as Domm Holland (Founder & CEO of Fast), Jason Calacanis (one of the world’s leading angel investors), Nick Mehta (CEO of Gainsight), Harry Stebbings (Investor at Stride Capital and Host of The Twenty Minute VC), Kate Clark (The Information), Li Jin (Investor at A16Z), and many other individuals with similar credentials and experiences.
As someone interested in the technology and startup space, Twitter has been an incredibly rewarding resource for me. It allows me to learn from a variety of people, across a variety of industries, about a variety of topics on any given day.
Podcasts
Podcasts are one of my favorite ways of consuming information. I often listen to podcasts while I work out, go for a walk, or do something that doesn’t require my full attention. Some people I talk to say that they don’t love podcasts because they find it hard to fully focus on the content of the podcast while they are simultaneously doing something else. However, I believe that this is part of the beauty of podcasts. You can listen to a podcast while you do something else! As such, you can essentially focus-in on the content from each podcast episode that you are most interested in learning about, while zoning-out on topics and conversations that you are not as interested in.
When I read books, I sometimes find myself going through pages — if not chapters — where I do not feel I am learning much new information. Sometimes this is because I have previously learned about the content, other times it is because these sections are in preparation for the next big teaching.
With podcasts, however, I feel that I can essentially stop paying complete attention to what is being discussed at times when I am not entirely interested, and then quickly snap back once the content is of key interest again. This is much more difficult to do while consuming information through something such as a book.
Newsletters
I subscribe to a variety of newsletters, ranging from daily and weekly newsletters about tech and startups, to newsletters about the stock market, to individually-curated newsletters about certain industries, to just about anything else you can think of. I actually recently created a new email address for the sole purpose of subscribing to and receiving newsletters — in an effort to keep my other inboxes cleaner.
I love newsletters. Each day, I can choose which newsletters I want to read, and, to be honest, I rarely ever read an entire newsletter — start to finish — even though many of them are not too long. I often search through newsletters for keywords and interests of topics — then diving in on the things that interest me most.
There has been a rise in individually-curated newsletters recently, and it is a trend I absolutely love. Why subscribe to a newspaper or something of that type, paying a monthly fee for access to an entire paper when you probably only read about a few topics? It seems to be much more rational to find individual newsletters and content creators that you like, subscribe to these individuals and newsletter, and only receive content that is relevant to your interests.
The Takeoff
My interest in newsletters led me to launch a newsletter of my own last year. My goal: To interview founders and business executives in the St. Louis area, allowing them to offer advice for students interested in a career in business. At the time, the newsletter was called ExecU Weekly, and I worked on it alone.
Since then, I have refined the idea, expanded the team (adding two incredible co-founders!), and changed the name to The Takeoff. The Takeoff is a publication focused on inspiring the next generation of startup and technology leaders, through interviews with leading founders, operators, and investors.
For me, The Takeoff is amazing for many reasons. To start, The Takeoff allows me to chat with and interview some of the best founders, CEOs, and venture capitalists in the world. The amount of knowledge I gain from a 30-minute phone call with an individual such as Ashley Braiser (Partner at Lightspeed) is incredible.
Next, The Takeoff allows me to share some of that knowledge with our subscribers and anyone else who is interested in reading specific interviews. Prior to starting ExecU Weekly last year, I found myself having phone calls and coffee chats with individuals and often being left in awe of how much I learned. However, I was the only person on the receiving end of that knowledge.
The Takeoff allows Lukas, Roshan, and I to spread the incredible stories, ideas, advice, and insights of our interview guests with a much, much wider audience. It allows others to learn from the amazing people we interview and, in doing so, promotes learning in a variety of ways.
Key takeaways + What’s next?
So, while I, and many other Gen Zers, may not read as many books as some of the generations before us, I think that we still consume a considerable amount of information. Increasingly easy access to different forms of information allows us to gain knowledge from a variety of resources and platforms.
When we open Twitter and see a post from The Players’ Tribute, we learn. When we go to Medium to read a short post, we learn. When our friends share an article about recent trends in the stock market, we learn. When we listen to a podcast while going for a run, we learn. And, when we sit down and open a book, we learn.
The future will likely look more and more decentralized in terms of how people consume information and learn. I imagine it not being so cookie-cutter as to this book by this author is good for XYZ reasons. Rather, I expect information consumption in the future to be way more dependent on each individual’s interests and desires, which may indeed change over time. Curated news sources, such as podcasts, blogs, and newsletters, will allow individuals to consume information from sources they trust and sources that they believe relate closely to their desired learnings and goals.
It will be interesting to see how traditional newspapers such as The New York Times fair as people look for ways to pay individual curators and creators, directly, rather than subscribe to newspapers and other services as a whole. Platforms such as Substack and Gumroad already allow people to directly pay their curators/creators of choice.
I do not believe that books, newspapers, and other things that I think of as more “traditional” forms of consumption will disappear. I believe books are, and will continue to be, an essential part of our information consumption and knowledge gain. Newspapers are too. However, I believe that the learnings made through books will be complemented by and in some cases replaced by other forms of information distribution that adhere more closely to our generations’ habits and desires.
If anyone has anything to add, or any questions, feel free to reach out!
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