As you get older, you may notice that conversations with old friends become increasingly difficult. Even when you manage to reunite, there's an awkward tension.
Beyond different living environments and careers, the "Knowledge Gap" may be widening the distance between you. When one person stagnates or grows more slowly, and your thought patterns operate at different levels, the relationship gradually fades.
The Knowledge Gap refers to how everyone's accumulated knowledge increases over time, regardless of socioeconomic status. However, people with higher socioeconomic status acquire significantly more knowledge than those with lower status, causing the knowledge gap between these two groups to continually widen and expand.
#The Disparity Stems from Information Flow
People with higher socioeconomic status can easily access core information.
One reason is they clearly know how to obtain missing information. Another is their ability to quickly apply what they've acquired.
Simply knowing "what information is lacking" already represents a massive difference. This comes down to "self-awareness." Our thinking, cognition, and values are shaped by education, economics, culture, family, and other factors. Recognizing one's own shortcomings and what information is missing isn't easy. Let alone actually taking steps to acquire that information to bridge the gap.
However, due to different information flows, people with higher socioeconomic status already have fundamental knowledge far superior to those with lower status. Here's a concrete example: nearly a decade ago when I was in graduate school, I tutored elementary students near Normal University, teaching first and third graders how to build websites and use Photoshop!
After working with them for a while, I discovered the third grader had German and French lessons in addition to computer class, and his entire family had studied and worked in the United States for years, only returning to Taiwan during holidays to practice Chinese.
When someone begins absorbing diverse knowledge from elementary school, imagine how vast the gap becomes if you only start trying to catch up later. Moreover, while you're working to close the distance, they're continuing to grow. All you can do is accelerate your growth rate.
#How to Bridge the Information Gap
First, you must be "consciously" willing to move toward a specific goal or direction. Otherwise, it's like navigating without GPS—you'll likely take detours or lose your way.
- Cultivate self-directed learning
(1) Reading is essential: Books are the systematized, structured culmination of an author's years of experience and knowledge.
Through reading, you can absorb complete knowledge systems and gain valuable experience from others.
By increasing reading frequency and time, you'll develop your own book preferences and style, and deepen your knowledge within similar domains.
(2) Whenever you encounter something you don't understand, independently investigate the root problem and solve it.
I've noticed many people only solve immediate problems under given conditions. They don't think broadly, nor do they systematize their solutions as accumulated knowledge assets. Each time they face a new situation, they relearn from scratch.
Actually, most self-directed learners can create and construct their own knowledge systems, replicate experiences, and continuously accumulate. This is how explosive growth occurs, allowing you to close the gap with others in the short term.
- Connect knowledge horizontally
As mentioned, higher socioeconomic status individuals can quickly apply acquired knowledge because they possess horizontal integration ability.
To achieve horizontal integration, you can "independently complete something substantial"—like a project, plan, or long-term challenge. These must have a specific, measurable numerical outcome.
For example:
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Complete a 50,000-word manuscript within 3 months
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Prepare an online course in 6 months and raise over 300,000 yuan
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Launch a group purchase with 50 buyers in a week
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Organize a charitable fundraiser raising 100,000 yuan in a month
And so on.
Why do you need specific numbers?
Because when you're clear about your objective, you'll strategize to reach it. During this process, you actively seek missing resources, organize them, and push toward results. Upon completion, you possess irreplaceable experience and resources others can't take from you. Then you replicate.
- Build networks across different circles
Beyond self-directed learning and horizontal knowledge integration, networks are an important catalyst for narrowing the knowledge gap.
First, with good observation and sensitivity, conversations with people from different fields can break through your existing mental frameworks, helping you understand what you previously didn't. Many moments, you'll genuinely feel the difference between yourself and others.
To gradually close this gap, you can:
(1) Elevate yourself to engage in parallel dialogue: When you find yourself unable to understand topics discussed by certain groups, you must actively invest in self-improvement.
Take stock markets, real estate, blockchain, Open AI, profit margins, equity, and other fields you don't understand but want to join discussions about. You should independently fill these knowledge gaps as "thoroughly" and "multidimensionally" as possible, integrate them with personal experience, internalize them into perspectives, and exchange information with others. Through these back-and-forth interactions, you can mutually learn.
(2) Consciously expand your network:
"What's crazy is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results," When your environment changes, your cognition shifts, and so does your behavior.
So in narrowing the knowledge gap, consciously expanding your network circle becomes crucial. This way, you continuously receive new stimulation, like upgrading a system. Years later, you become a completely new version of yourself.
And it all starts with "I'm willing."
