Does The Internet Really Make Us Dumb?

Does the internet really make us dumb? This a good question to ask and I am sure most people would probably answer it without really thinking about it. Before I read the Nobel winner's article, i did what most people would do. Answer the question without taking the time to think about it. My answer was there is not way that the internet makes people dumb. If anything, it makes the smarter but then I had a slightly different reaction after I read the Nobel winner's speech was inspiring in more ways than one. As much as I still don't agree entirely with her remarks on the internet making us dumb, her speech made me appreciate how she was feeling and where she was coming from when she made that statement. We are a jaded lot, we in our world - our threatened world. We are good for irony and even cynicism. Some words and ideas we hardly use, so worn out have they become. But we may want to restore some words that have lost their potency.

In a lot of ways the internet has taught the world, things that we would have never known. We have visited countries and met people that we would have never met because of social media. We have also gained access to incredible knowledge.For all those dumb people reading this who might never had read anything of substance before, may I suggest Wikipedia, it’s apparently a place where you can read interesting things, but it isn’t on paper, so it might not count. On the other hand the internet has corrupted our society, it has been the source of crimes, murders, suicides etc. Both children and adults have had access to information that they might never have had when it comes to the internet and that has either shortened their lives by helping them commit suicide for example or made them worse off.

Whether or not one approves of wikis, blogs, and the other digital tools of social media, they are becoming the key ways in which all of us—Harvard professors and adolescents alike—distribute and acquire our information. So leaders of associations that pursue the counter-revolutionary Updikian option and completely reject the social media revolution are likely to be remembered as Canute 2.0 or Custer 2.0. I completely agree with Andrew Keen's article on the social media making us worse of than better off. Social media has given us a platform to choose our destiny, to educate ourselves on the good, bad and the ugly and make a choice for ourselves. The challenge is to pick the 'good' has been the issue with most people and this is why these two authors we are reading about disagree with the internet wave.

My personal thought on these two articles overall is that we need to stick to the basics and what we know which is the real knowledge of books and professionals and use the internet to enhance what we already know and not take away from it.