Is the Internet making us stupid?

[PicassoCT]

Its a brothel with a library my old teacher used to say - and he is right. If you come to the brothel wanting for entertaiment you will get entertaiment, endless entertaiment and diversion. If you want something pretty badly, you will get it (most people can get a route planned on google, even those easy to distract)

So the problem is that the intertubes bring forward character traits, and that to the extreme. If you want to study and learn, you can read tutorials and learn for free - even if not suscribed to a university.
If you dont really want that (as many of those first years suscribed to a university) the intertubes wont stop you. They even dont make a nice sock puppet to blame for personal failure.

Evil Intertubes, you made me lurk on 4chan (Mootgoingflipsideagaintodaybytheway?), when i should study. Shame on you, in the corner with you, wear the donkeyhat, and dont come out before you had a change of heart.

[SwiftSpear]

i don't think it's making us stupid per se. for me, there are two sides of the coin (as always)

there's definitely something going on though where people substitute learned knowledge for the access to knowledge... you guys know what i mean, you ask a question, and instead of thinking about it, the person you've asked immediately powers up the smartphone and googles it

its almost like the internet is a catalyst to take in as much (as most people here would do i warrant, spending hours pulling up pages on the net and soaking up as much information as we can) or as little (google everything, don't check more than one source, skim read) as we want.

so yeah. i think using internet for instant reference can be a bad habit. however reading and learning and expanding your mind via the internet is great

I'm not sure about that either. How much time I've spent reading random various pieces of interest on the internet. That information does stick to some degree, as much as reading any text book anyways. People are rarely stumped by anything anymore, but I don't think most of us are too much more inclined to let the internet remember stuff for us. We supplement memory with it, sure, but not replace it.

[Gota]

I never cared too much about careful and skillfully written articles or books even as a young teenager (with a few exceptions, LOTR my precious!!).

I have noticed that i care about those things even less and i seek to maximize the intake of info i care about as oppose to gobbling it with other stuff as well.
I have a strong tendency to weed out only what i specifically need and throw away the res and im sure many others have their reading behavior altered.

I think that since the amount of available stimulating info is so big over the internet our minds are forced to become ever more efficient spam filters.

Overall the internet is definitely making people smarter/more intelligent, more up to speed with world events, and overall more knowledgeable.
The access to info is great and its very easy...
The internet is built in such a way that it encourages the intake of information since its super easy to acquire and demands little effort.
Also the costs of pc's that can run the web is super low leveling the playing field for rich and poor even more..

[Machete234]

Getting drunk is not more idiotic than playing WoW

Prolonged alcoholism physically destroy the brain.

WoW takes a shortcut and makes everything else than WoW boring apparently, so from there on your brain can degenerate over the years playing wow.
Your brain specialises on wow an can do nothing else later.
When youre done playing wow youre 30 year old geek.

But what if you play wow because you're drunk?

Thats the best way to play wow, its even better if you have a blackout and you dont remember playing wow.
This way you cant get hooked.

[Regret]

If anything, internet made it very hard for me to tolerate stupidity.

[Sucky_Lord]

ofc its not making us stupid, its so much easier to research nowadays.

gg, the guy is just trying to scam retarded people(who probably dont use the internet,) end of conversation.

[scifi]

i don't think it's making us stupid per se. for me, there are two sides of the coin (as always)

there's definitely something going on though where people substitute learned knowledge for the access to knowledge... you guys know what i mean, you ask a question, and instead of thinking about it, the person you've asked immediately powers up the smartphone and googles it

its almost like the internet is a catalyst to take in as much (as most people here would do i warrant, spending hours pulling up pages on the net and soaking up as much information as we can) or as little (google everything, don't check more than one source, skim read) as we want.

so yeah. i think using internet for instant reference can be a bad habit. however reading and learning and expanding your mind via the internet is great

I'm not sure about that either. How much time I've spent reading random various pieces of interest on the internet. That information does stick to some degree, as much as reading any text book anyways. People are rarely stumped by anything anymore, but I don't think most of us are too much more inclined to let the internet remember stuff for us. We supplement memory with it, sure, but not replace it.

the fact we are discussing this, is of merit
i wonder if in any real life world without internet we would be discussing sociological behaviour

internet is an extension of reality, the advantage is you can go to a libray or somewhere else within a second

[Licho]

The book is about people being conditioned by internet to have short attention span and big hunger for novelties which they expect to be satisfied soon.

I think it did that to me.

How many of you actually read all posts here completely and thought about them before posting?

Is that how you should behave in real life discussion?

So I too believe it makes us short attention span fast satisfaction seekers and makes us too easily bored.

[scifi]

The book is about people being conditioned by internet to have short attention span and big hunger for novelties which they expect to be satisfied soon.

I think it did that to me.

How many of you actually read all posts here completely and thought about them before posting?

Is that how you should behave in real life discussion?

So I too believe it makes us short attention span fast satisfaction seekers and makes us too easily bored.

i agree but still.........
work does make a large part in stressing us.

The fun thing is if you ask a person what she/he would do in her/he free time they would start naming stuff like working more, improving skills, doing gim classes e.t.c...... they would not use the time to rest or stop.

So if internet wasnt around people would still be looking for stuff to do.

you can say they could go outdoors more, and be more healthy yes, but still they would be doing something.

Human race is a stressed race.

the true problem here is TIME we are slaves of time and the evil clock.

[Licho]

I don't think that work decreases your attention span. If anything most jobs actually demand focused attention.

And regarding free time - thats highly subjective.

If you ask other people they will sure tell you stuff that makes them look nicer :)

But what would YOU want to do?
Do you really spend all your free time going to gym or studying quantum mechanics? Does it feel relaxing? :)

I sure like to relax and I can spend tens of minutes lost in my own mind doing idle cycles. Or drink wine slowly and listen to music or just watch nature. And it all feels nice.

[Panda]

But what would YOU want to do?
Do you really spend all your free time going to gym or studying quantum mechanics? Does it feel relaxing? :)

I sure like to relax and I can spend tens of minutes lost in my own mind doing idle cycles. Or drink wine slowly and listen to music or just watch nature. And it all feels nice.

I like working out in my free time. I get that runner's high after jogging for a few miles while listening to my MP3 player and am very amused by my workout routine. It's awesome, listening to music and exercising!

I often also like to read and learn about new things too unless I'm very tired in which case I just kind of daydream, listen to music, or watch movies. Using one's imagination while reading and learning new things can be relaxing if you feel as though you have to be doing something mentally stimulating or otherwise feel agitated because you're bored.

[PicassoCT]

The book is about people being conditioned by internet to have short attention span and big hunger for novelties which they expect to be satisfied soon.

I think it did that to me.

How many of you actually read all posts here completely and thought about them before posting?

Is that how you should behave in real life discussion?

So I too believe it makes us short attention span fast satisfaction seekers and makes us too easily bored.

I know a lot of people who drone one and one in rl. And you cut it out after a while, you nod, and because you are polite, you admit them some sort of expert status (you didnt listen to there praise-myself-monolog)- this is how authority is born
People are people, even on the intertubes, the only thing here is that three of hundred will really listen, and tear you to shreds if your logic is faulty. So RL 0 : Intertubes 1 for quality of conversation.

[Gota]

you need to smoke weed drink alcohol(not overdo it) and coffee in this hectic world of ours just to make it through the year without dying of stress..

[Machete234]

So if internet wasnt around people would still be looking for stuff to do.

No they would just watch tv.

And you cut it out after a while, you nod, and because you are polite, you admit them some sort of expert status

I dont know if it fits but we have this friend who always tells this unuseful knowledge trivia stuff about things he is supposed to be an expert about and nobody else. (like chewy chase movies, video games from stone age etc)

Normally nobody checks these things for truth but recently we check what he says on google with a netbook thats always around.
And more often than not ist BS what he is saying. ->funny game
+1 for the internet

[Johannes]

Well just how many of you posted here before actually looking up what is this guys point? Impatient internet morans...

[Gota]

Pointless... people are not gonna stop using the net...
The net is fine as long as its a means and not an end.
You should be in the net a lot cause you are trying to achieve some worthwhile goal like studying something new or getting new skills leveled up(rl skills) and be focused.

If your in the net to constantly surf in 4chan or just drifting in the net wherever random wiki articles take you youll end up in a dark alley with a virtual needle stuck up your vein.

[PicassoCT]

Hello, my name is PicassoCT, im 21 years old, and is this what they call a internet addicted help yourself group?

[TradeMark]

If your in the net to constantly surf in 4chan or just drifting in the net wherever random wiki articles take you youll end up in a dark alley with a virtual needle stuck up your vein.

or spamming topics/replies at springrts.com

[SinbadEV]

Well just how many of you posted here before actually looking up what is this guys point? Impatient internet morans...

Sorry, apparently you have to get his book to find out what his point really is.


Sorry... I forget what the point of this post was going to be and lost track... I'm going to post it anyways on the off chance you can figure it out but I apologize for it in advance.

The truth is that Human brains don't "Evolve" as quickly as pop-psychologists would have us believe... if you design content that is good at getting a point across to a 4 to 6 year old child, it's going to stick in the brain of any kid with the language skills and cultural background to receive it, regardless of their attention span or whatever learning deficiency it is claimed they have. Sesame street works, blues clues works better... as such I have trouble believing, without empirical study, that using my time reading forums makes me any more stupid then watching television or getting some excesi

In a good week I'll read a little over half a book, and compared to most people around me this is a huge amount of reading, but it's not, really, I know at least a few guys who read a book and a half a week and back in HS I was reading 3+. Does reading fictitious accounts of the lives of 17th century philosophers or religious allegories written by atheists or stories about the lives of the people involved with the construction of the Death Star actually makes me smarter then reading articles at random on wikipedia.

[PicassoCT]

Just one more reply and then i quit