“In general, has the Internet diminished our ability to think critically or are we more
informed than previous generations – or both?”
The advances of the Internet, with its vast amounts of data and collaborators and sources of information, have taken the worldwide population to a new and different technological era. There is much debate over which direction the population is headed, whether smarter or dumber, but I believe that with the good comes the bad and our next destination as a people is actually a little bit of both.
Some writers would have you believe that we are becoming less analytical and research oriented. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, he lays out the difference in information approach, in response to the changes in media and technology, in a great metaphor: from deep-sea diving about a topic in-depth to skimming the surface of the water on a jet ski. He makes many valid points regarding how people have access to so much information and just absorb bits of everything as they travel through the nets, but no one knows about any subject in particular with authority these days, because of current informational trends.
Writers on the other side of the issue insist that we can only improve our intellectual capacity with every advancement in technology which is allows access to more information. Jamais Cascio, in his article in The Atlantic “Get Smarter”, brought up a point that resonated deeply with me - the trouble isn’t that we have too much information at our fingertips, but that our tools for managing it are still in their infancy. It is this line of thinking, and my belief that people have to exercise the intellectual curiosity to dig deeper about topics, that allow me to see the ultimate benefit of the internet and all of the information available.
It is my belief that the internet effect on the intellect of humanity has been both good and bad – and that’s okay. We have access to more topics today than generations before could ever have dreamed of. This allows access to subjects and exposure to issues that would never have seen the light of day – and I would be remiss at not acknowledging this. New media, technological advances, and other changes may affect the way we process information on the surface, but the information is all there for further scrutiny and investigation. One just simply has to dig deeper and with more focus, avoiding the distractions and pitfalls out there to redirect focus. With the creation of more and more tools that help us to manage what’s available, we can make better and more logical sense of what data we receive. This has the advantage and potential to take us to higher and higher levels as a people, in medical discoveries, easier means to accomplish goals, and ways to generally improve our everyday lives.
We just have to want to make it work for us.
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Marcus C. Ealy is a graduate of Entertainment Business from Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. He is currently active as an entertainment and marketing strategist, blogger, social media manager, and background vocalist. You can follow his personal blog at http://reflectiveknight.blogspot.com or on Twitter at @MarcusEaly.
