The Internet Makes Us Smarter. Or Does It?

I think the Internet has the potential to make us smarter. I think it just depends on how we use it. I noticed that Carina said she is learning Japanese. She went on to say "I can increase my knowledge even further by going online and obtaining online lessons to speakers in Japan all via the Internet." All the information we need is at our fingertips thanks, in part, to technology. In doing research for this post, I came across a few articles that discusses this issue. The first is from The New York Times. The article recounts an interaction between a professor and student at Roanoke college. The professor smashed the students cell phone because it rang in class. Samuel Freedman, who wrote the article, praised the professor for doing this. He goes on to say:

At age 55, Professor Nazemi stands on the far shore of a new sort of generational divide between teacher and student. This one separates those who want to use technology to grow smarter from those who want to use it to get dumber.

Perhaps there’s a nicer way to put it. “The baby boomers seem to see technology as information and communication,” said Prof. Michael Bugeja, director of the journalism school at Iowa State University and the author of “Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age.” “Their offspring and the emerging generation seem to see the same devices as entertainment and socializing.”

I don't agree with Bugeja or Freedman. According to this, I am of the generation that wants to use technology for socializing and entertainment. I see technology and as something I can learn from. Don't get me wrong, I do like to log into Facebook or watch videos on Youtube. And, I think many of my peers feel the same way. The article also discusses computers in the classroom. Bugeja is opposed to the idea and essentially says that students who are online during class are not engaging in critical thinking skills. I don't think that's the case at all. How does he know that the students aren't researching some of his talking points?

Another article from The Guardian discusses how it's not the Internet making people stupid, it's the screens. He mentions the Carr article and basically says that it's human nature to be distracted.
"Humans, too, will flit around, given the chance, just in case we find something that's fabulously useful to us."
He then discusses how it's the computer screens (size and resolution) along with the temptation to check email, that account for a slowdown in the speed at which we read. He says that computer screens don't offer the same quality as reading from paper. I think he has a valid point. Computer screens can cause eye fatigue and you can get distracted...very easily. He ends his article by saying:
"You know now that the internet isn't making us stupid; it's just making us read slower. Go on, go and check your email. You've earned it."

The third article I looked at is called The Interet is Making Us Stupid. The writer spoke with the author of Republic 2.0, Cass Sunstein. Sunstein states that the Internet makes it easier for us to gain information but it also allows us to avoid information we don't like. For example, I could look up all the information I wanted to about liberal issues and not look at the conservative view point. Basically, we are in an echo chamber. While I do think that there are some people who do this, there are others who do want both perspectives. The article mentions how conservatives flock to Fox News while liberals gravitate toward NPR. It's not just the Internet where things like this happen.

This is the final article I read: Stoooooooopid....why the Google Generation isn't as smart as it thinks. The article's author, Bryan Appleyard, says basically the same thing as the article from The Guardian -- that we've become too easily distracted. He says we're too easily distracted, doing too many things at once and it's slowly killing us. Appleyard says we skim but don't absorb. That may be true for some people. But I still think the Internet and technology offer ways of accessing information that we didn't have before. We can learn more about different things. And choose what we learn about in depth. As one of the earlier articles stated, we are, by nature, easily distractable anyway. The computer/internet didn't make us this way.

In conclusion, I don't think that technology or the internet is dumbing us down. I think it allows us to have access to more information, faster. I had to post the following video -- I just couldn't resist!