Can the Internet Make You Smarter? Posted on October 24, 2008 Post a comment

The Internet is such a powerful knowledge and communication facilitator. It is the largest, most accessible, and conclusive reference library in existence, but it is also so much more.

The Internet has truly changed the way we connect and learn, by offering users a variety of new tools and tricks. The question is: Are these tools really helping us think, or is the structure of Web applications limiting higher-level thought?

There are certainly hundreds of ways to leverage the Web:
• Find anyone or anything anytime–www.google.com
• Clear up any confusion (whether it’s the truth, or not, is beside the point)–www.wikipedia.org
• Choose more intelligent verbiage visually–www.visualthesaurus.com
• Then, whittle down your speak to the most succinct language–www.ironicsans.com/thsrs
• Stay connected to your friends and family with very little effort–www.twitter.com, www.facebook.com, www.classmates.com, etc.
• Know the news…everywhere–www.newsonfeeds.com
• Let your finances take care of themselves–www.mint.com
• And, join the conversation, without trying too hard–www.wordpress.com, www.blogger.com, www.livejournal.com

It might seem like the effort in life is being taken out when we simplify things to this degree. On the other hand, maybe this growing garden of applications is helping to invigorate our engagement more than we realize.

A magnetic resonance imaging study at the University of California, Los Angeles, on “Web savvy” users and “non-Web savvy” users found that, “Members of the technologically advanced group had more than twice the neural activation than their less experienced counterparts while searching online. One result of this study is that these technologies are not all bad. They may be good in keeping our brains active.”–Dr. Small

That’s uplifting. So, maybe the hubbub of my life on the Web is making me a smarter person, even though I feel a little more stupid every time I go to my twitter time line.