Slashdot Mirror
Does the Internet Make Humanity Smarter Or Dumber?
Nemilar writes "The Wall Street Journal is running a pair of articles asking whether the Internet is making humanity smarter or dumber. The argument for smarter is that the Internet is simply a change in the rules of publishing, and that the bad material is thrown away; the second story critiques the 'information overload' aspect of the Internet, claiming that we have traded depth of knowledge for velocity and span. What do you think? Does the Internet make you stupid?"
The TV makes people (especially kids) dumb, because it is an impoverishment of the senses: Without touching, smelling and hearing (signal is not timed correctly) the brain development is stunted. The brain always learns, but we offer it shit. Ask a neuroscientist like Manfred Spitzer.
The Internet (as a media) is great at distributing information, and helps freedom of speech, protection against regimes&suppression.
But don't overlook that information is not produced on the Internet. Anyone who want to contribute something new, will perform a lot of "offline" thought and work first. Progress doesn't come from the thousand monkeys on a typewriter.
Don't just take them away, replace them with some better use of your time.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
The first article doesn't address the notion that these changes in thought patterns could lead to greater intellectual abilities down the road. The author says:
but maybe that's subject to change over time, as more and more humans don't pay deep attention. Or maybe we will adapt to be able to more easily pay attention deeply to the most important details.
Additionally, even if that doesn't happen (soon, or ever), maybe humanity as a whole is better served this way. Maybe we don't need everyone to be a deep thinker. Maybe we can benefit from a large segment of people who can think quickly, but not as deeply.
In other words ... Idiocracy is funny, but unlikely. We will adapt and move forward over time, as we always -- given sufficient time -- have.
Let us consider two cases:
What have we gained as a direct result of these technologies? What have we lost?
Is it worth it?
I remember being told to play outside all day - back when we could do that without sunscreen and without getting burned. It used to be that I had to make a plan and stick with it if I was going to meet a friend - I couldn't call them when I got to the place and THEN figure out where they were waiting. I didn't used to be a slave to the byzantine contract or incessant needs of my portable phone (that probably isn't giving me cancer). I imagine libraries were a lot more popular, living rooms were centered around conversations or musical instruments, and if you couldn't sleep you could listen to live performances on the radio. To name just a few examples.
What have we gained? Well, the space on my desk that used to be for a rolodex/business cards is now taken up with Arduinos & servos. My girlfriend sits up in bed and watches Glee on her iPad instead of finishing her cross stitch. Pinging the hivemind to solve a technical query is pretty damn awesome. uh... everything else I can think of is probably a negative.
So while I haven't definitively made up my mind, I feel like the evidence I am aware of leans towards "worse off".
Are you really procrastinating? Would you have done ten minutes of work if you hadn't spent ten minutes on Slashdot?
In a more general sense: do you work as efficiently during your second and third hour at work as you do during your sixth and seventh?
We have this weird obsession with working when you're at work (I know that sounds silly, but still) - you simply can't work full blast all the time, and it's weird that management insists that people pretend they do for eight, nine, ten hours a day.
Honestly, I think that's at least part of the reason why we've seen such an increase in productivity since the advent of computers - they provide a great way to pretend you're working, so you can take a break and work more efficiently when you do actually work. I'm not even trying to be funny with this comment; I seriously do think that the increase in ability to occasionally goof off without repercussions has increased total efficiency.