Does the Internet Really Make Us Smarter?

Back in the 1980s the US economy and, really, the world economy had found itself largely shifting from being industrially driven to information based. This was only accelerated with the dramatic rise of the Internet where "content is king." I have several friends who work in this industry and I hear their concerns every day, they sound like the little robot in the movie Short Circuit, "I need input," is their constant cry.

We are now bombarded with information thanks to the Internet and for most of us it has become a huge one source. Sheer encyclopedia size content waits at our finger tips. We want more, providers want more, but are we any smarter?

From what I can tell most of us are getting much better informed about the things in which we have passion. When I talk to my sports junky buddies, they know statistics about players and games in a way I hadn't seen in the past. When asked how they know something, the answer is the Internet. Same goes with my entertainment junky friends, and their source is the Web as well.

However, I doubt the web is generally making us better citizens or more culturally literate, although it certainly could if we were so inclined. I don't think the web has made us smarter per se, although there is no doubt it has made us more efficient in the way we do many things. It has only made it easier for us to learn more quicker about (in most cases) the few things we have passion about. We have this huge resource out there, I would love to see us use it in a way that makes us smarter and not merely more efficient.