The internet has given people access to vast amounts of information, but some fear it may lead to overload and a lack of depth in learning. The term “pancake people” refers to those who spread themselves thinly over many subjects, rather than focusing on one. This approach may lead to a lack of intellectual curiosity and a focus on superficial aspects of culture.
Children born in the early 21st century will probably never know a world without the Internet, cable television, online museums and other forms of instant intellectual gratification. The average high school student in any developed nation has access to more information than some of history’s greatest minds, such as Socrates or Da Vinci, ever had in their lifetime. However, some critics of this phenomenon fear that instant access to all this information could overload or overwhelm users. Instead of delving into one particular discipline, many people are dabbling on the surface of many interests and study subjects at once. Author Richard Foreman described those who thinly spread across a broad spectrum of topics as pancake people.
For many generations, scholars and artists have tended to focus their energies on a particular subject or discipline. For William Shakespeare, that interest was literature; for Mozart it was musical composition; and for Newton, physics. Visual artists were not expected to understand higher mathematics, nor were philosophers expected to study engineering. Without widespread access to libraries or the ability to instantly spread their latest creations to the rest of the world, many people have struggled in relative obscurity to plumb the depths of their chosen callings or topics of interest.
With the development of the Internet and other sources of information that can be accessed quickly and easily, many people strive to acquire at least a working knowledge of many different topics. So-called pancake people no longer focus their energies on one area of interest, but instead choose to spread thinly over a large area. As a result, a new generation has essentially become the proverbial jack of all trades, but nobody’s boss. An 18th-century linguist might have studied Spanish or French until he could translate even the most complex works of literature composed in those languages, but modern pancakes learn the language only enough to navigate like tourists. As long as the information needed to accomplish a task or create a new job is literally at a person’s fingertips, there is always a risk that that person will lose some intellectual curiosity.
The term pancake people is largely seen as a negative commentary on the current instant information age. The ability to access even the most obscure information within seconds can be seen as a positive social development on some level, but it can also cause some people to become less inclined to delve into a particular topic of interest. As a result, a generation of overworked pancake people may become more obsessed with the more superficial aspects of culture and less interested in the larger arc of human history.
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