Has the internet made us smarter?

[rah]

Has the internet made us smarter or not?
It has been a boon. No more searching through a drawer full of manuals searching for the one you need to fix something.
There's a video on line to take you step by step through the process or manuals for those specs.
Having an argument with the spouse, and she's looking up the answer on her phone to prove me wrong.
The information generation has been a boon for the health care industry and touches us every day.
The collaboration potential and given us some great leaps.
People can educate themselves online.
But is it making us smarter?

Every idiot out there can find a source that reinforces their stupidity and then use it to shout down all logic and reason.
It has helped polarize the country by encouraging/facilitating tribalism.
Does this outweight all benifit?
I grew up with out it and consider it the most important invention in History.
I could live without it but prefer not to.
I think those that have always had it look at it differently sometimes.
It has made it easier for us to uncover the lies of our Government but also made it easier for them to do it to us.
What are your speculations and what is your criteria for judging it?

 

[Hygro]

I think so.

 

[Synobun]

Those same idiots existed before the internet. They are not motivated by accessibility of facts but instead by accessibility of thought. They were more localized in the past, but only by technological limitations.

The potato farmer with a keen interest in bleeding out demons in underage girls would have shouted about it on Twitter if they had it at the time.

The internet has been wonderful. History has never known an intellectual golden age as today.

 

[rah]

Has "fake" History been an issue. I've seen a lot of stuff that was touted as History on line that lacked any credibility at all.


And the old college room round table discussion have been replace by on-line forums like this. But in those old round table discussion didn't seem to break down into the tribalism we see today. Face to face seemed to be more civil. It wasn't as anonymous as on-line so the insult level was a lot lower. I think you could actually change the opinion of someone.

 

[civvver]

No, it's just information. Intelligence is the ability to seek out, filter and apply that information. Unless you think being smart is just spouting off useless facts like an encyclopedia, then ok it's made us smarter in that regard for some.

 

[rah]

But the internet has made it easier to seek out, filter and apply it.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Interweb, Smart, Me, Make!

 

[rah]

And here I was expecting you to post an Onion headline.

 

[Broken_Erika]

How's this?
Mark Zuckerberg Recalls Coming Up With Idea For Facebook After Seeing Dopamine-Addicted Lab Rat Starve To Death

 

[Hehehe]

I don't know if the internet is making us smarter, but it's definitely making us better informed

Every idiot out there can find a source that reinforces their stupidity and then use it to shout down all logic and reason.
It has helped polarize the country by encouraging/facilitating tribalism.

The solution to this is debate, dialectic and free speech. It is true that a lot of people like to retreat into their own little echo chambers, where their erroneous beliefs will not be challenged. However, there is no reason why the world would have to be this way. All it would take is a little tolerance and open-mindedness. All it would take is letting the truth prevail in an honest conversation. But it seems like not a lot of people can do that nowadays

 

[Lexicus]

The internet has been wonderful. History has never known an intellectual golden age as today.

I'm not sure I would go that far. The internet has tremendous liberatory potential. The problem is that potential is largely being squeezed out by the capitalist relations we've inherited from the past.

Here's an example of this playing out in real time. The EU is considering adopting a rule that would basically apply the Youtube content rules to the entire internet - so if some piece of content is deemed to violate a copyright it will be taken down first and questions asked later. This would essentially destroy the meme culture that is one of the most worthwhile things the internet has produced.

A nice thought experiment might be to imagine what social media would look like if its purpose wasn't to mine our data for sale to third parties.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well I'm no fan of the EU proposals, but the notion of meme culture being one of the most worthwhile things on the internet is one of the most depressing things I've read in some time.

 

[Synobun]

Sounds like a politics problem and not an internet problem.

 

[Lexicus]

Sounds like a politics problem and not an internet problem.

Well, yeah. Because ultimately, "the internet" is just a bunch of sweaty people sitting at computers. It's us. "It" doesn't really exist.

Well I'm no fan of the EU proposals, but the notion of meme culture being one of the most worthwhile things on the internet is one of the most depressing things I've read in some time.

Yeah, I mean, you're way too high-brow for that stuff aren't you Manny?

The funny thing is I've read entire books with less intellectual meat than I've seen in one image macro.

 

[Hehehe]

Well I'm no fan of the EU proposals, but the notion of meme culture being one of the most worthwhile things on the internet is one of the most depressing things I've read in some time.

Why though? Memes are essentially modern art

 

[elmurcis]

In short - smarter? Not really (its more about learning process in kindergarten/school/family/society etc and used methods in general. So if internet allows methods to spread around faster and get tested so adjustments can be made faster for regional differences - yes, its improvement.
What it changes - chance for (random) persons to reach higher limit closer to theoretical potential. But same time it also gives much more chances to spend time for entertainment that could slow down progress. So its again about person and character if him/her. If you got "high downforce" for learning and self-control and you can plan day/week/month in great way so you are relaxed but can learn a lot same time, internet allows to get into higher league for sure.
(just my 5 cents)

 

[Lexicus]

Why though? Memes are essentially modern art

It is an intensely odd sensation for me to agree with you on something

 

[rah]

But same time it also gives much more chances to spend time for entertainment that could slow down progress.

Yes, the potential for a time sink of wasted time is enormous. But then there is the argument that those doing that would just be doing it another way if this was available. (solitaire for example).

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that it could make us smarter, in that it allows unprecedented access to information.
In reality, though, time ends up being used for posting in forums, which makes one probably dumber ^_^
Forum-posting is a kind of non-image meme.

 

[rah]

The forums are good for quickly seeing the different biased takes on events.