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Internet will make you smart or dumb?

By SiliconIndia | Monday, 22 February 2010, 03:34 Hrs | 6 Comments

Los Angeles: A survey of nearly 900 Internet stakeholders reveals that internet enhances and augments human intelligence. The Pew Internet/Elon University study shows fascinating new perspectives on the way the Internet is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared and rendered.

The web-based survey gathered opinions from prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers. It is the fourth in a series of Internet expert studies conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and the Pew Research Center?' Internet and American Life Project.

"Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and rendering of knowledge," said Janna Anderson, study co-author and director of the Imagining the Internet Center. "There are still many people, however, who are critics of the impact of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools."

Anderson and co-author Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, asked a number of questions in the survey. Some of the most compelling responses were answers that extend the debate over criticisms leveled by tech scholar and analyst Nicholas Carr in a 2009 Atlantic Monthly magazine cover story titled "Is Google making us stupid?"

"What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking," says Carr.

This is what a Google employee had to say, "Google will make us more informed. The smartest person in the world could well be behind a plow in China or India. Providing universal access to information will allow such people to realize their full potential, providing benefits to the entire world," said Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google.

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Reader's comments(6)

1: No doubt that internet provides us access to lots of information and thus enhances our knowledge but that doesn't imply that it makes us smart too. As it depends on the individual's ability and capability to use that information as per the work requirements with their own creativity.

Posted by:Nazia - 23 Feb, 2010

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2: Access to lots of informations can give new directions to our thinking.

Posted by:Prakash Kumar Rath - 23 Feb, 2010

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3: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2009/11/instant_info.html

Posted by:SiliconIndiaReader - 22 Feb, 2010

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4: If the meaning of smart is like having more knowledge, maybe yes. As far as intelligence as thinking ability is concerned I would rather disagree. Independent thinking doesn't come because of internet, it may make much of the tasks easier, our perception of a task being intelligent may change, although we have done a poor job.

Posted by:ajj - 22 Feb, 2010

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5: Internet will definitely make us smarter. but there should be one verified knowledge base...or you can say extremely modified version of wikipedia which only provides correct info.

Posted by:Puja - 22 Feb, 2010

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Availability of Knowledge does not guarantee it's application. It only works if you have everything else needed to use that knowledge..But one things for sure. I have learnt nothing from college everything I know is from the internet, My Job is also a product of that. It only matters IF people do have something using the knowledge.
Wiki note, Intelligence is variously defined, it includes intellectual traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge, wisdom, ability to question.

Anil Replied to: Puja - 22 Feb, 2010

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