As best you can, list in descending order of volume, not necessarily of importance, the sources for information over your lifetime for what you consider valuable and useful data. Add to this list and reorder it to fit your own impressions of how and where you learned what you know to be most relevant to the way you think and carry on your daily affairs.
Mine, with possible inaccuracies of placement:
Reading books
Reading magazines and newspapers
Listening to radio programs
Listening to school teachers and professors
Watching movies
Watching TV
Internet webpages and message boards
Conversations with relatives and family
Conversations with friends and peers
Listening to gossip, rumors, hearsay
stuff I know I have yet to identify
This is mostly just for fun, but may be instructive as the thread develops – assuming it does.
Reading magazines (journals more than magazines) and newspapers
Watching TV (a lot of news shows, ‘people with problems’ shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil - which have then very often led me to seek out other sources of information to further investigate the issues brought up on the shows
Internet webpages - from authoritative sources
5)Listening to school teachers and professors
message boards - on forums where people like to post links, like SDMB
Conversations with colleagues
I can say I have learned valuable and useful data from the above. I probably have learned some things through the rest, in the order I’ve listed them, but not anything significant that I can think of.
Watching movies
Conversations with friends and peers
Conversations with relatives and family
Listening to radio programs
Listening to gossip, rumors, hearsay
By far the most valuable information to me has generally been information which led me to other sources of information. From there I follow through to other sources to do more in-depth research.
So, for instance, Dr. Phil mentions a study on relationships by John Gottman; I look up his website and read some of his stuff, then look for articles by him on the web, and go hunt up books or articles in print.
Good post, Quiddity Glomfuster, and you’ve helped me remember another source: the dictionary and, to a lesser extent, the encyclopedia.
Not as often as I used to before internet days, but still occasionally, I will sit down with the dictionary and just start with a random word, and then proceed, by way of words in the definition(s) that I’m not sure of (or never heard before) to wander through for up to an hour (occasionally longer) of amusement and amazement. I daresay a person with the diligence to do it could become quite erudite with little more than this source. Yeah, and some idea of grammar and syntax and all that.
I’m going to make two lists. It is just easier that way.
Non-fiction books. This would mostly include college text books and to a lesser extent, books I find on mine own.
The Internet. I usually visit sites that post links to other reliable sites.
Magazines. Since I only read one magazine I might as well say The New Yorker.
Friends and family. I like to hang out with people who know about things.
TV. Things like National Geographic and the History Channel.
College professors usually just clarify their textbooks so I don’t know where to put them.
Two college professors and one high school teacher. All it takes is one good professor to have a lasting influence.
Movies and TV. They have probably shaped the way I think and move the most.
Non fiction books and magazines.
Friends and family.
Educational TV.
The Internet. For some reason this has only been a good source of raw data for me. It hasn’t really shaped my daily affairs except to confirm whether or not other influential sources are true or not.
