Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: Is the Internet dumbing us down?

Shakespeare was supposed to ruin our culture, Elvis was supposed to destroy America and Paris Hilton was supposed to...well...the damage is done on that on.

Like any societial advancement there are pros and cons to everything. Granted a lot of information we are begining to get in short doses. Who has time to read entire articles now a days? So instead, we read snippets. We are becoming headline readers, instead of whole article readers. That can viewed in many different lights, one being, we get more total information, but less in depth knowledge about it.

The positive side, is we are becoming more connected. I have found people on myspace, facebook that I would have lost touch with forever, because either I've moved, or they've moved. Cultural divides are bridged because we have access for what makes different cultures tick. Art, history, music, everything is becoming linked together.

If anything, if we can take this massive global connection, I think in the future we will be better off.

How do you measure intelligence? If its by the amount of facts we've learned or retained, maybe we're dumber. But if its the approach in which we take to solve problems using our available resources: no, we've gotten no dumber.

Alex

With all the personalization options, customized news filters, bots etc we have significantly reduced our exposure to ideas and information that differ from what we already know and/or believe.

I think this, more than anything, is the bummer -- and dangerous trend -- resulting from the internet and IT.

Here's an article that expounds on the issue much more eloquently:

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/26/Perspective/The_endangered_joy_of.shtml

It's always about what one makes of it... That is in human nature.... One sees a half empty glass, another - a half full; one creates a bomb out of atom, another - a power station; for one it is a bloody terrorist and murderer, for another - a glorified freedom fighter.... Absolutely everything that humankind came up with is a double edged sword. The trick is to find a positive side, a creative opportunity, and use it for better... Now, all this depends on one's preposition, moral values and good will... Ax is a tool that got us "out of the caves"... Unfortunately, a lot of people got killed with that. They still sell them in hardware stores, don't they?

You have no idea how much time and effort people put into their myspaces. If nothing else, that site takes up valuable time.

Youtube has SOME intellectually valuable videos. Then there is the other 99.9%... the mindless content, which DOES dumb you down and waste your time, albeit occasionally entertaining (12 year olds trying to break-dance, people launching roman candles at each other, dogs chasing rabbits...)

I am a regular and frequent user of Google and various other sources of online information. I am also an MCP programmer and developer and electronics specialist, so I am not a Luddite anti-technologist. However, the proliferation of information online which is either deliberately or unintentionally just plain wrong, combined with the "sound-byte" nature of many information sources, has led to a situation in which rotuine acceptance of erroneous information is commonplace.

The kind of in-depth understanding of history, issues, concepts, etc. which arises from doing thorough research into the subject cannot be obtained from the piecemeal information grabbing the Internet has made possible. In college, I recall having to do the research for papers, and reading numerous sources and making note cards which reflected _all_ of the questions regarding the thesis, not just those which agreed with my approach to the paper, in order to make a properly reasoned argument in the paper. Failure to do so, at least back then, would have meant failure of the paper.

Now, when one is researching a question online, it is all too easy to locate sites which agree with one's predetermined opinions and thoughts and to ignore those which do not. The ability to apply critical thought to the obtaining and evaluation of information is the most egregious of the negative effects brought about by the Internet. I've noticed this particularly in the area of politics and history, from listening to conversations of those who are, shall we say, not well read. Whether their bent is Al Franken or Rush Limbaugh, they seem unable to accept that there is any validity to any arguments counter to those that they have heard or seen expressed in their preferred venues, or to have ever thought, "I wonder what those on the _other_ side of this issue have to say?"

Last night I drove past a library in a neighboring town. Ten years ago it had a repuration as a research source because of its expensive subscriptions to services that indexed periodical publications. Compared with the results I get from a single ill-conceived search on the least effective engine on the net, eight hours of work in the library was a gross anachronism.

Our standards of accuracy are infinitely higher and the breadth of thought and the links to similar concept so powerful that the idea of "dumbing us down" is laughable. I invent medical devices and the quality and timing of our products has improved so much from the intervention of the Internet it is stunning!

But a look at the publisher and sponsor of the book in question does shed light on the view. Since the book does bring up the point of marginalising the "main stream media" one can understand the biased statement. MSNBC is so dependent upon "dumbed down" viewers who do not research their bombastic statements that they indeed should fear a public that verifies broadcast distortions and makes a decision to forgoe viewing for something more "balanced". I know the preceding are code words for some, but the fact is that the Internet has so enriched our intellectual experience to suggest otherwise questions the sanity of the original writer.

First, if you think that the term "liberal education" has to do with your political ideology, you might be one of the people I'm writing about. My observation of the young people I have hired in recent years is that their general knowledge of the world, the arts, other religions and history has become more and more limited. Nor do I observe any in depth knowledge or interest in current events, and these are events that will have a profound influence on their lives.

As another writer or two have mentioned, it's not that the internet can't be a powerful reference tool, but it's that it's so easy to find only the ideas you want to find, and they're often condensed by someone with minimal background knowledge.

However, it's not just about or caused by the internet. TV news has become the same. There are fewer in depth reports, and more video bites. We see reporters who don't exhibit any depth of knowledge about the issues they report ... nothing but pretty, talking heads. At the local level, TV news has become the National Inquirer of the air. Fires, car cashes, shootings, and the current drunken celebrity make up the evening report. It's cheap to produce, and it sells soap.

It's a sad commentary when the Daily Show starts giving more information than the network news. I'm concerned that attention deficit has become our national malaise.

The internet is not dumbing anyone down, people are dumbing themselves down. its your choice to learn or not, instead of spending all your time on facebook bragging about yourself and posting pictures that you think look "cool" and makes you feel better about yourself why not use the internet for real purposes like "How to guides" etc, e books.blogging,writing articles,news(real topics not "how to get laid" or "what justin beieber ate for breakfast today". People are filling there brains with irrelevent information that takes up space. People make themselves dumb, the technology used for there stupidity is there choice........there not using it right.