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I'm getting tired of these "The Internet Makes Us Dumb" and "People can't read on the internet"... These articles are usually so poorly read that I give up tryi

by orib 18y ago

I'm getting tired of these "The Internet Makes Us Dumb" and "People can't read on the internet"... These articles are usually so poorly read that I give up trying to make sense of them. I have no problem reading large, thick books, and will often work through a well written 400 page novel in maybe a day or so. I'll also sit and read through an interesting article on line, when it deals with relevant issues. Maybe people stop reading your articles half way through because they're dull, meaningless luddite whines, and not because they've gotten stupider? Can we stop posting these "damn kids get off my lawn" sort of posts? there are enough real problems with society these days that we don't need to make up crap about how reading online makes us dumb.

byrneseyeview 18y ago
I think the author is talking about the average person, not about you. The Internet makes it very, very easy to tune into something trashy. I'm not sure it's productive to claim that a culture of ignorance is less important than other problems. If you don't fix that, everything else gets worse. If people start to believe that it's important to do an actual job well, not to vote in a giant election or a TV show or a social news site, many problems will disappear.
- orib 18y ago
  As I said, there are enough real problems with society that we don't need to make up hogwash about how the internet is us stupider. Real problems, like a broken education system where the intelligent children with a desire to learn are bored to tears, and just stop trying in school, all in the name of bringing up people who can't -- or don't want to -- learn well enough to keep up. Real problems like a culture of unquestioning consumption of both material and nonmaterial items. Real problems like people's apathy towards their environment -- the communities that they are part of, the health of the planet they're living on, et al. I could go on. If anything, tuning into interactive trash is a step or two above what generations have been doing since the 1960s -- tuning into TV, and turning off their minds. I see the current inanity of many parts of the internet as a product of this culture of ignorance that you're speaking of, and not the cause.
bkovitz 18y ago
Did you read the whole article? The author sounds pretty sick of that stuff, too. For example: "The book's ultimate doomsday scenario -- of a dull and self-absorbed new generation of citizens falling prey to demagoguery and brazen power grabs -- seems at once overblown (witness, for example, this election season's youth reengagement in politics) and also yesterday's news (haven't we always been perilously close to this, if not already suffering from it?)."

by orib 18y ago

byrneseyeview 18y ago

I think the author is talking about the average person, not about you. The Internet makes it very, very easy to tune into something trashy. I'm not sure it's productive to claim that a culture of ignorance is less important than other problems. If you don't fix that, everything else gets worse. If people start to believe that it's important to do an actual job well, not to vote in a giant election or a TV show or a social news site, many problems will disappear.

orib 18y ago
As I said, there are enough real problems with society that we don't need to make up hogwash about how the internet is us stupider. Real problems, like a broken education system where the intelligent children with a desire to learn are bored to tears, and just stop trying in school, all in the name of bringing up people who can't -- or don't want to -- learn well enough to keep up. Real problems like a culture of unquestioning consumption of both material and nonmaterial items. Real problems like people's apathy towards their environment -- the communities that they are part of, the health of the planet they're living on, et al. I could go on. If anything, tuning into interactive trash is a step or two above what generations have been doing since the 1960s -- tuning into TV, and turning off their minds. I see the current inanity of many parts of the internet as a product of this culture of ignorance that you're speaking of, and not the cause.

bkovitz 18y ago

Did you read the whole article? The author sounds pretty sick of that stuff, too. For example: "The book's ultimate doomsday scenario -- of a dull and self-absorbed new generation of citizens falling prey to demagoguery and brazen power grabs -- seems at once overblown (witness, for example, this election season's youth reengagement in politics) and also yesterday's news (haven't we always been perilously close to this, if not already suffering from it?)."