Does The Internet Make You Dumb?

[nat whilk II]

There's quite a few articles bouncing around the web with various takes on this question. Linked is a WSJ article which is one of the more well-written ones I've come across.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704025304575284981644790098

 

The article assumes that the internet "makes" us act in certain ways. I question that.

 

The article also seems to posit that, before the internet, there were more "deep thinkers" - I also question that.

 

Personally, I absolutely love the availability of information the internet provides. When I was a kid in the 60s and a young, hungry-for-learning student in the 70s, information was so bloody hard to get and expensive.

 

I do think there is a looming danger in expert systems - particularly the popularized ones like bookkeeping systems, tax preparation systems, legal "virtual attorneys", and so on. Typically these types of systems lead to a false sense of security that "the software does the stuff I don't understand". While such systems can handle straightforward, simpler situations, it's not true once the complexity of the task exceeds a certain threshold. Past that point, reliance on the computer and/or internet is a fool's paradise.

 

What d'ye'all think?

 

nat whilk ii

[Phil O'Keefe]

IMO the challenge has switched from merely obtaining data to verifying the veracity and accuracy of data, and sorting though a staggering amount of it to sift the good information from the fallacious.

[UstadKhanAli]

I think it tends to give everyone a voice. And that includes dumb people.

 

So if you read, say, YouTube comments, you would swear the collective IQ of the world had dropped 40 points.

 

The other thing that tends to happen is that people who don't tend to question things or dig a little bit will see a meme on social media that they agree with and pass it along without checking to see if it's factually correct. After all, many people want affirmation, not information, and seeing something they agree with clearly must make it right. So there's a lot of misinformation floating around, and as Phil mentions, the challenge becomes verifying the veracity and accuracy of data and sorting quite a lot out.

 

And finally, one more thing is that especially with smartphones, there tends to be this shorthand. Someone's bangin' something out on a small screen while waiting for something, and it's not going to be written as well, grammatically or otherwise, and will appear considerably dumber.

[UstadKhanAli]

Why the rash of posts about the, uh, information superhighway?

[blue2blue]

There's quite a few articles bouncing around the web with various takes on this question. Linked is a WSJ article which is one of the more well-written ones I've come across.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704025304575284981644790098

 

The article assumes that the internet "makes" us act in certain ways. I question that.

 

The article also seems to posit that, before the internet, there were more "deep thinkers" - I also question that.

 

Personally, I absolutely love the availability of information the internet provides. When I was a kid in the 60s and a young, hungry-for-learning student in the 70s, information was so bloody hard to get and expensive.

 

I do think there is a looming danger in expert systems - particularly the popularized ones like bookkeeping systems, tax preparation systems, legal "virtual attorneys", and so on. Typically these types of systems lead to a false sense of security that "the software does the stuff I don't understand". While such systems can handle straightforward, simpler situations, it's not true once the complexity of the task exceeds a certain threshold. Past that point, reliance on the computer and/or internet is a fool's paradise.

 

What d'ye'all think?

 

nat whilk ii

 

IMO the challenge has switched from merely obtaining data to verifying the veracity and accuracy of data' date=' and sorting though a staggering amount of it to sift the good information from the fallacious.[/quote']

 

I see it as kind of a multiplier.

 

If you are a rational, inquisitive, skeptical sort, the Internet gives you enormous and powerful resources.

 

If you're the kind of person who can't reason very well, who gets confused easily by conflicting information, who doesn't know how to pull apart information or problems, you've probably been wasting your time (and everyone else's) anyhow, but you're going to find a lot more ways to waste time and energy -- and plenty of opportunities to get fooled, tooled, and 'schooled' by those who will profit from filling your head with misinformation.

 

A lot like TV but with more channels and more dark corners for scoundrels to hide.

[blue2blue]

I think it tends to give everyone a voice. And that includes dumb people.

 

So if you read, say, YouTube comments, you would swear the collective IQ of the world had dropped 40 points.

 

The other thing that tends to happen is that people who don't tend to question things or dig a little bit will see a meme on social media that they agree with and pass it along without checking to see if it's factually correct. After all, many people want affirmation, not information, and seeing something they agree with clearly must make it right. So there's a lot of misinformation floating around, and as Phil mentions, the challenge becomes verifying the veracity and accuracy of data and sorting quite a lot out.

 

And finally, one more thing is that especially with smartphones, there tends to be this shorthand. Someone's bangin' something out on a small screen while waiting for something, and it's not going to be written as well, grammatically or otherwise, and will appear considerably dumber.

 

A pet peeve, that pass-it-along-without-checking thing. Mostly because I've been caught doing it a few times with stories that were either really old (the news-that-fits-never-dies syndrome), exaggerated or distorted intentionally to sell a point, factually incorrect, too-believable fictions designed as satire, or, sometimes, outright lies. (Those Palin quotes... I mean how do you top the things she's actually said for satire? So it doesn't become obvious -- and reposting something as true when it's a lie, well, that ain't so funny.)

 

Of course, some people really believe that they have a right to lie because, you know, their side is the right side, so anything they do is justifiable.

 

Anyhow, I've become something of a PITA to some of my frequent-posting political fellow travellers, pointing out inaccuracies and bogus stories. No matter how you couch it, no one likes to be shown as wrong, even if they appreciate it intellectually and rush to correct it.

 

 

One last thing: I'm a sponge. And, unfortunately, one of the things that seems to get sucked up unconsciously is bad spelling. When I was a kid, growing up, you almost never saw misspellings and drastically bad grammar in print, except in small town newspapers and those instruction sheets that came with the new Japanese imports. Now, online, we are surrounded by terrible grammar, horrible misspellings, and what often appears to be self-proofread articles (if that, even) on mainstream publication sites.

[nat whilk II]

I don't know if anyone is reading the linked article - one of the main points it makes is that the culture of constant distraction that the internet (and related devices) offers "makes" people incapable of carrying on truly reflective modes of thought.

 

The other idea I come across is that, since info is so available, then nothing need be remembered or worked into one's interior system of knowledge and understanding, since, zap, it can be accessed via the internet.

 

I've heard teachers complain of something like this - kids just grab whatever is at hand off the internet and slap it down as a done deal. But kids have always looked for quick and easy ways to toss off homework one way or another. Not sure the internet has done anything except offer a bit more convenience to the already lazy.

 

The lack of deep, sit-down, quiet, absorbed and concentrated reading is at risk I suppose. Not sure how many people naturally take to that kind of reading anyway...unless compelled to at school or in a profession. I've run into countless people who seem almost proud of the way they give the least time possible to actual reading....a glance and a quick response and off to something else like the chess genius playing 30 games at once. That's a sarcastically qualified "like", you understand.

 

nat whilk ii

 

[Beck]

Does The Internet Make You Dumb?

nat whilk ii

 

Yes and no. For the most part I think people were dumb or not when the Internet came along, but IMO the web is rather shallow if you don't know how to research. Long before the Internet came along I lived just a few miles down the road from the third largest academic library in the United States and I still go there and still prefer real books and rare books for serious research.

 

The Internet is great, but only if you already have high standards for research and aren't one that believes everything you read. For many people I'm sure it does have a dumbing down effect, but those people tend to live on the surface anyway. It just makes it easier for them. I liken the surfacey nature of the web to the checkouts at the grocery store or Walmart. Next time you go to the store take a minute and look around you as you're standing in line. You're surrounded by junk food, candy, junk news about the kardashians, etc. For many people that's a lot like the web. For people like me we notice the crap at the checkouts and we don't partake. (unless they have Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars, but that has flavonoids... good for you.) I notice what I call the "Baby pool" aspect of the web but it's not deep enough for me. Well I will go there to teach people how to swim like I did with my sons when they were kids, but I can only take so much before I have to climb the ladder to the high dive and swim with the adults.

 

Wiki probably makes people stupid and even Snopes to some degree. There are certain Internet resources that people take as gospel and they are the worse for it. But then before the Internet people read rags like the National Inquire, which has a lot in common with the junk side of the web. I still know people that think "Professional wrestling" is real. You can't teach discernment or common sense. You either have it or you don't, but I think the web has a lot of potential to exacerbate the stupidity that's already there. I see it all the time in the Political Party forum. And not just the one on HC. It's pretty much the same everywhere. A topic comes up and people google and run to Wiki to become an expert on the topic as quickly as they can, and that is part of the web culture that has made America and the world collectively more dumb (or is it dumber?)

[sirfun]

YOUTUBE comments are reality squared !! )

[Vito Corleone]

 

A pet peeve, that pass-it-along-without-checking thing.

 

 

The rule of thumb here is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. People just can't wait to pass along quotes that are SOOO incredible that THIS person said that!

 

Yeah....that's because they probably didn't...

[UstadKhanAli]

It helps intelligent, curious people. It doesn't help dumb, knee-jerk people.

 

That's my summary. How's that?

[Beck]

It helps intelligent, curious people. It doesn't help dumb, knee-jerk people.

 

That's my summary. How's that?

 

Ummm... I think you nailed it... end of thread.

 

One of these days, Ken, I'm going to learn to say what I say with as few words as you do and still get my genius across. As it is now it takes me a page to say what you do in a sentence or two.

[Phil O'Keefe]

[UstadKhanAli]

[electrow]

The article Nat mentions is derived from Nicholas Carr’s well written book: The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing To Our Brains. In the book he suggests the internet has become an intended environment of distraction and actually discourages focused concentration and at the same time it is rapidly shaping social fabric:

 

“The Net is, by design, an interruption system, a machine geared for dividing attention”….

 

“…we are plunged into an “ecosystem of interruption technologies,” as the blogger and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow terms it.”….

 

“……..it is that technologies are not merely aids to human activity, but also powerful forces acting to reshape that activity and its meaning…”

 

 

 

Many thought, in the beginning of general public access to the net, that it would not only become a powerful resource of knowledge but also a broad egalitarian network. While that has happened to a degree, we seem to accept but not fully realize how our perception of what constitutes as information, knowledge is subtly shaped by technocrats:

 

 

“Google doesn’t believe that the affairs of citizens are best guided by experts. It believes that those affairs are best guided by software algorithms…

 

Google, as the supplier of the Web’s principal navigational tools, also shapes our relationship with the content that it serves up so efficiently and in such profusion. The intellectual technologies it has pioneered promote the speedy, superficial skimming of information and discourage any deep, prolonged engagement with a single argument, idea, or narrative. “Our goal,” says Irene Au, “is to get users in and out really quickly. All our design decisions are based on that strategy.” “

 

 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about one of electronic technology’s most powerful forces. And that is speed. Speed is like an unstoppable virus and cultural heroin at the same time. There seems to be a driving need for more. I’m reminded of the film: Koyaanisqats (original version). With speed comes, for one, impatience and the expectation of ever changing events big and small.

 

 

“…the future of knowledge and culture no longer lies in books or newspapers or TV shows or radio programs records or CDs. It lies in digital files shot through our universal medium at the speed of light………………………………………………..

 

 

 

The shift from paper to screen doesn’t just change the way we navigate a piece of writing. It also influences the degree of attention we devote to it and the depth of our immersion in it. Hyperlinks also alter our experience of media. Links are in one sense a variation on the textual allusions, citations, and footnotes that have long been common elements of documents. But their effect on us as we read is not at all the same. Links don’t just point us to related or supplemental works; they propel us toward them. They encourage us to dip in and out of a series of texts rather than devote sustained attention to any one of them. Hyperlinks are designed to grab our attention. Their value as navigational tools is inextricable from the distraction they cause….”