Spreading Information Among the Common People

Have you ever felt you know so much about a somebody or something and just want to share the information with everybody? Now days almost everyone has the ability to discuss what they know about a subject with the power of phones and social media. This is called the democratization of knowledge, which in Wikipedia means the spread of knowledge among the common people, not just privileged elites such as clergy and academics.  

Democratization of knowledge has grown so much in the past years, people used to only have access to Ivy College education if they were admitted or attend in person. But, stated by gsablogs.gsa.gov, now many colleges such as Harvard, MIT, Duke, and Standford give out courses online for free. There are also other websites like Wikipedia, Yelp, Facebook, and YouTube where people can upload their thoughts whenever they want.  

Is this a healthy way of people getting educated and should people be allowed to keep spreading their ideas or data on social media? Some people say it is not a good way of learning new things because people with no college education can write papers or make videos and the information can be false and misleading. According to Dimitris Tsigos, a writer from efront, he stated that learning technologies were a luxury product, but now everything is cheaper to learn. 

Examples are cooking books, magazines, beauty learning, or health diagnostics. In the past people need to pay for all the things I just mention, but today people can search recipes, read magazines online, watch videos on how to get makeup, and go to websites were doctors give you factual information of a disease or injury. According to Jane Weaver, a writer from NBCNews, health companies in 2013 were going to invest $1 billion online, which means the importance of putting factual information about health online.  

Businesses also benefit from the democratization of knowledge because many people can rate and add comments about a restaurant, beauty salon, gyms, or many other local places in yelp or google. Believe it or not many people actually go to these websites to see the ratings and comments before attending the business place. According to Rosie Murphy, author of an article on BrightLocal, she said 86 percent of consumers read reviews of local business and to trust the business they need to read at least 10 reviews.  

I do think democratization of knowledge is a good thing because people are paying more to bring you reliable information. It is also cheaper because you don’t need to be buying every product just to learn something. Lastly, people can see if businesses are good or bad by looking up rating and reading reviews of the place.