The Internet Makes Us Smarter!

[Chu]

I was just going to relax while watching TV but of course I ran across something thought provoking...

I saw an AT&T commercial just now claiming that "Access to the internet makes us smarter" but I'm sure that many would disagree, especially considering the context of the commercial: It was a spelling bee. XD The link will be provided below. I guess you could go out on a limb and argue that it does because we have access to so much information, we typically read more than we used to, and we're more knowledgeable on subjects that aren't immediately or easily tangible, but these are only possibilities that many people don't reach. Most people that use the internet aren't exactly literate, and would probably never look up something for the sake of learning more about it, except for celebrity news or something.

On the opposing side of the argument: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" I read this article once in a magazine in my English class and found myself agreeing with it completely. Of course, the entire article doesn't revolve around the internet and intelligence, but rather the processes of the mind and how we're basically "reprogrammed" by machines. Hell, I even agreed with the aspect that my tone and syntax change on not just the internet, but my computer. I type more logically than I write - my tangents are often long-winded and I have to edit more, but I get much more "beef" from my typed papers than I do from my written ones. But I'm ranting, of course. The key aspect that I'm getting at is in this quote:

[Pandora]

Before I got too involved in the internet, I was literate with my speech and writing, so I wasn't affected as much in my typing and a lot of people complain that I write and type too much. As for my attention span, I find myself skimming articles that I find online, but the reading ones that might be in a magazine or newspaper, I tend to actually read. I actually do use the internet for information uses as it can take me places I could not normally reach, but most of the internet writings are boring or not what I'm looking for. In my case I don't read as many novels as I used to because a lot of them are mainstream bs that one author ripped off from an old classic and then all the other authors copy in order to make money and get movie deals....pathetic really. I think the internet has affected what people expect to read: simple, cliche, and predictable. The main use I have for the internet is this: to escape the realization that I am alone. Most of my friends have moved away at this point and my Ray-Ray has been stationed in Okinawa at the moment (aviation mechanic in the Marine Corps), so I have no one to interact with other than the friends I have online. Graduation is coming up soon and then I can spread my wings and return to my loved ones. I think humanity training their brains to interact with machines is something that happens without them realizing it. People depend on them so much and are so used to the convienences, that if all technology were gone and we had nothing but ourselves and the natural earth, the majority of humans would die because they have lost the ability to tune themselves to their primal instincts and nature itself. A good percentage of the human population would have no idea how to perform daily tasks without a stove, washing machine, electic lighting, indoor plumbing, home heating, hot water, etc. I hope I'm not getting too off-topic here, I am just trying to expand on your thought of our minds being programmed to machines. <3

[Chu]

Pandora wrote:

I hope I'm not getting too off-topic here, I am just trying to expand on your thought of our minds being programmed to machines. <3

No, not at all. <3 I love doing this type of thing.


I honestly can't say whether I was literate with my writing or not before I started using the internet. I think it was in... sixth grade (maybe... somewhere in middle school) when I started using the internet daily, but my writing skills weren't very good. I excelled for what I was expected to do, but I think of all ages that would be the one where children are most vulnerable to changing their ways of writing entirely because of the internet. The worst that I ever did was slip into "lol" for about a year. That was it. Hm...

Do you think that maybe... and I don't want to sound offensive, but... it's more so the weak minded individuals that fall into the habit of bad grammar and syntax after prolonged use of the internet? Now, I know that how a person types in a forum or on facebook is much different than how they write in school in most cases, and I'm not talking about those people, but I have seen the papers of some of my friends... and there isn't much difference other than the fact that they spell out words more often. The use of punctuation is just as terrible as ever, not to mention paragraph layout.

I think that most people who get on forums like this do so because of the same reason as you. Humans are social creatures, so it's no surprise. Then there are the people that stay on facebook chatting with their friends. I think those people do so simply because it's easier than being with those people in person. If a confrontation starts, they can just not reply and move on to someone else. I think that could also be chalked up to short attention spans because most of my friends talk to at least six people at a time. I wonder if they even remember what they talked about?

[DrunkenShark]

I don't think it makes us smarter at all.

To get an entire population "smarter" in a decade or two is probably impossible (except if we go with sci-fi subject and technology able to magically make us smarter in our sleep) since it would requires to litteraly modify everybody's brain function (since it's all what gives us intelligence). I don't think people get that smarter over time; we mostly learn to use machines and technologies. I mean: how different is our brain compared to the brain of people from Middle Age? Maybe we have more chance to have healthy organs (including brain) because we have access to more quality food, but other than that... And how different is it compared to the brains of our parents, knowing they did not have internet?
One can say: "yeah but intelligence comes from the brain connections as well, and internet can helps us creating new ones...". Right, true, but our parents had the same "brain connections" potential, and they had books instead of the internet: it's quite the same after all.

The only change comes from the fact we only use our brain differently, we only develop other skills. We can visualize virtual things and operation, yes, we can access to a huge amount of information in seconds, yes, but it doesn't mean we can automatically accomplish things that are fit for higer levels of intelligence.
Plus: don't tell me people, kids, teens and young adults nowadays are more willing to learn with the Internet than people wanted to learn before it was invented; how many friends our yours spend their internet time on Facebook watching pictures and commenting things like "Lol" and " it was a nice party" on the profile of the friend of the friend of your friend's cousin? You know there are plenty of tutorials on the net, but do you use them all? Do you use any of them at all?

After all, if everything gets so easier, we don't have to think as much anymore: you can cut and pace whatever you want, you get what you want with a few clicks of a mouse... No need to trouble ourselves looking for answer or doing long researches: everything comes to you so easily you don't even need to remember what you just found since you can access to it the next time you are asked about it. Man, you don't need to learn to read japanese or cyrillic: you can get instant translations; you don't need to calculate anything: you type the mathematical formula in the Google search bar and it gives you the answer right away!

(hope I was making sense )

[sonaxakai]

I disagree with the internet making us smarter because reading makes us smarter and more creative usually but we read whats on the internet so it isn't entirely the internet but with reading too and the internet only makes things easier not making us smarter and we always have to accept a challenge right?

[Chu]

[sonaxakai]

[Chu]

I know it sounds like I'm being a bigot, but I see it like this: You can give two different people the same well-written article and have them read it. Person 1 is an analytical type who thought critically about the article. Person 2 is a lazy type who skimmed through it and didn't think much about it after the put it down. Obviously, person 1 gained more knowledge from it.

I do see where you're coming from though. If done properly, reading can be very beneficial to a person. Hell, reading Twilight introduced me to what shouldn't be done in writing. I rewrote the beginnings of three stories after reading that series, and they're much better this time around because of what I learned. Did I learn anything to be proud of? Not really; just that Mary Sues should be avoided at all costs and that I should never use a thesaurus to cover up my blatantly limited vocabulary. But I did learn something useful, which is really all that matters.

So I guess that, if the person is intelligent enough, reading anything is beneficial to them. If not, then they should read things that challenge them so that they can get to that point, or at least think more critically about what they're reading.

[sonaxakai]

((CRAP!I used the wrong Knew/New!I meant to use New instead of Knew ))

Twilight is fantasy fiction,Vamps and Were-wolves aren't real,even if they were vampires would still feed upon humans(were-wolves too) instead of loving them

[Chu]

Haha, don't worry about it. xP

Well, that's getting into a whole other debate so I think I'll leave it alone.


@DrunkenShark: Sorry; I overlooked your post earlier. ^^;

I basically agree with everything in that post. XD And yeah, it made sense.

Actually I think the internet was created by the military... to share information? Of course I'm not sure. I just remember discussing its origins with someone before.

One thing that I do want to comment on though is your last paragraph about using the internet to copy and paste everything. While you can do this, the sources don't and can't account for everything.

Let's use the Japanese translation example. Say I want to translate:
I want to be a history teacher when I grow up.

We get this:
私は歴史の先生私はなりたい。
Watashi wa rekishi no sensei watashi wa nari tai.

When we put the Japanese back in to translate it to English, we get this:
I wish my history teacher.

Machines can't decipher a human's intentions; that's why there are so many errors and glitches around the web. There's no way for any given human to accurately use a machine without learning it inside and out, and even then, there will always be technical issues.

Now, this is a problem on behalf of the human, not the machine. But if humans really wish to rely on machines so heavily, then they should know how to properly code and operate them first. That'll never happen though, because humans are inherently lazy. It's not a bad trait: It's what's gotten us so far up to today. We learn how to do things with the least required effort possible. But until we stop making shortcuts we can never rely on machines as we wish to.

[DrunkenShark]

[Chu]

You just reminded me of Lord of the Memes with the artificial intelligence comment.


I agree with you for the most part. Like in my Japanese class, some students try to overachieve by using extremely complex kanji on their assignments and everything, but if they're asked to read the kanji they wouldn't have a clue as to what it even stands for, let alone what it means. They just feed into their desire to look more intelligent or special than they are.


Another subject still on subject:

In my psychology class we discussed groupthink and I found that a lot of the terms could be used to describe phenomenon on the internet. Specifically, group polarization being the tendency to make more extreme decisions in a group than individually (I mainly think politics with this one) and deindividualization being conformity. We're social creatures, and the internet feeds this. We're able to be included in a group yet remain anonymous so we feel like we have more power than we do in person. Feeding these desires only feeds the cycle, and frankly, it leads to stupid decisions. Pretty much more evidence toward the internet not making us smarter, but that would be getting into the "can you judge a person's intellect by their decisions?" debate.

[DrunkenShark]

(oh, I remember having an assigment of polarisation months ago It is so true yet scary when you think of it)

Yes, the fact you can be anonymous on the Internet can become dangerous at some point. The infamous B section of 4Chan where so many people goes on it to criticize rudely anonymously for example, or all those racists videos, pictures or even forums you can find... The relatively extreme people can meet equally extreme others or even more radical people and, polarisation phenomena here, it can create a little army of "haters" entertaining themselves with destructive quests (and some even start taking those "quests" like serious business) Then it can go from simple cyberbullying to real life "gang-like" actions. It's just like the story we often hear of young KKK fans that met on a a comment board on a KKK website then decided to start their own club and started bullying and harrassing the latino-americans and the afro-americans of their school...

My father use to say that, in groups, the individual's logic fall down to the level of the most illogical and dumb one of the group... According to this, Internet makes you "connect with more people", but if not used wisely, it makes you "become very stupid with a bunch of even more stupid people"

[Chu]

I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact I'm kind of jealous at how eloquently you put it. XD Kudos!

[Tianfu]

I'm old enough that most of my schooling took place before the days of ye old internet, but I've had a computer since elementary school. I can't remember a time when I couldn't type. And since all of my school papers since middle school have had to be typed (and to be honest, I was doing it before then, just because I could), I don't think there's much difference between how I express myself now online and how I formatted sentences for those papers, except that I don't have to hammer out a thesis statement and I have a tendency to devolve into smilies. And use too many elipses... In contrast, whenever I have to write something down, it's always a very quick thought, usually in short hand. So my thought process when not on the computer is somewhat slipshod, although my brain tends to warm up when I'm in the middle of a vocal debate.

So I'd say, yes, the computer has had a definite influence on my brain, although I tend to think it's mostly a good one. I too have noticed a tendency to skim things online. However, I've also noticed that it happens most in forums or webpages that use strange fonts or colors. If I'm reading an article or story that is simply black font on a white background (and doesn't have a ton of flashy advertisements along the side), I find it much easier to read without becoming bored and flipping browser tabs. So I think a lot of it is because people on the internet like to use colors that hurt my eyes.

Both sides of the arguments have very good points. We have access to more information now than I did when I was going to school. However, there's way more stupid stuff online, too. And people who are not inclined to take even the little bit of effort to access the wellsprings of educated information on the internet aren't going to get any benefit from it. So I'm going with the thought that the internet makes the smart people smarter and the dumb people dumber.