Unlearn and Relearn
What we learn from experience becomes efficient and durable. But it also creates a disadvantage.
When the situation or circumstances change, the skills and knowledge we gained through experience may become obsolete.
Then we can get stuck, finding it quite hard to adapt.
In his 1971 classic Future Shock, futurist Alvin Toffler discusses the importance of being able to unlearn and relearn in fast-paced, complex settings. He likens this ability to being literate. But in a constantly evolving social, technological, and global world, irreversibility of the lessons from experience can render us “illiterate” in this sense, without us being aware for a long time.
How did you learn to ride a bicycle? We can’t just learn to ride by simply reading, watching, or listening to others telling us about it. There’s only one way: from experience. And once we can ride, we don’t easily forget. It stays with us for a long time. This is also true for many other motor skills, like driving, typing, skiing, or even performing surgery.
What we learn from experience becomes efficient and durable. But it also creates a disadvantage. What if the situation or circumstances change, and the skills and knowledge we gained through experience become obsolete?
Then we can get stuck, finding it quite hard to adapt.
Have you ever tried to unlearn how to ride a bicycle? It’s not easy at all. Luckily, somebody did try. Destin Sandlin, the creator of the YouTube channel "Smarter Every Day," reconfigured his bicycle for one of his episodes, so that when he turns the handlebars to the left, the bike goes to the right, and vice-versa.
In his video, Sandlin challenges many people to ride what he calls his “backwards brain bicycle.” How hard can it be? Extremely. Because people are experienced with a normal bike, they simply cannot adjust to this new situation.
Impressively, after much practice, and trial and error, Sandlin eventually learns to ride the bizarre bike. But then he discovers that he’s unable to ride a normal bike, proving that learning to ride a regular bicycle can teach the wrong skills for riding the backward brain bicycle and vice versa.
If you don’t wish to mess up your bike, you can experience the same effect by inverting your keyboard. Now try typing your name. You’ll find your hands hovering over the keys awkwardly as you search for letters in places they used to be, frustrated to realize they are not there.
Unfortunately, it’s not just motor skills. This trap exists in conceptual tasks as well. Experience can constrain us to prefer certain choices, processes, or actions even when they become obsolete or irrelevant. As a result, we may be stuck with outdated methods, simply because we are proficient in them. And with more experience, change becomes harder and harder.