Does the Internet make us stupid?

I've posted Clay Shirky videos previously, but his essay "Does the Internet Make You Smarter?" (Jun. 4, 2010 Wall St. Journal) made a particularly strong point.

Excerpt:

Every increase in freedom to create or consume media, from paperback books to YouTube, alarms people accustomed to the restrictions of the old system, convincing them that the new media will make young people stupid. This fear dates back to at least the invention of movable type.

That always happens too. In the history of print, we got erotic novels 100 years before we got scientific journals, and complaints about distraction have been rampant; no less a beneficiary of the printing press than Martin Luther complained, "The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure of limit to this fever for writing." Edgar Allan Poe, writing during another surge in publishing, concluded, "The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acqquisition of correct information.

I link this blog to Clay's because I admire his ability to to see and explain real cultural trends within the context of the Internet's (and all related technology/platforms) effect on societies.

In the world of social media--where the media itself is incredibly self-referential and there are plenty of individuals proclaiming to know all the answers with any one technology as a panacea--being able to understand and articulate a larger picture makes you more valuable.

As Wired Magazine put it:

Shirky is one of the handful of people with justifiable claim to the digerati moniker. He's become a consistently prescient voice on networks, social software, and technology's effects on society.

More Shirky bio (and video) at TED.

Definitely worth a little of your time.