A Saturday evening spent watching mid 90s reruns of Who Wants to Be Millionaire may seems an unlikely starting point for a blog post, but here goes. I began to notice that the questions seemed quite easy. I thought perhaps I was just having a good run, though several episodes later I had realised that actually the questions are easier than the relative ones you may get at the same point in the game today. I remember in particular one question was ‘How many pyramids are in Giza, Egypt?’ Now this was for the £250,000 and without Googling I can be pretty assured in saying it is three, and excuse me for making sweeping presumptions but I imagine you could, too.

Then I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the internet, or more specifically, access to a nigh-on infinite amount of information has resulted in people with a stronger knowledge base. Not more intelligent, per se, but simply a population who know more facts.

After a read round on the subject (see I can actually do that very easily) I realised that within the academic world the general opinion is the opposite. Nicholas G Carr is a Harvard Graduate who is on the board of the Encyclopedia Britannia and has published numerous books on finance, IT and technology. His most recent publication ‘The Shallows’ argues that the internet as a whole is making people less attentive and in his article ‘Is Google Making us Stupid’ he argues that the ease of knowledge acquisition to which we have become accustomed over the past ten years or more actually diminishes the brains capabilities for contemplation and concentration.

There is scientific evidence to suggest that since the past twenty years and with the rise of the internet – general mindset has become more scattered. In my mind though, Carr has not quite got it right. He seems to be not far from judging intelligence on concentration span alone. Okay so the ability to access whatever we want to know immediately may have made us less capable of scouring over text for hours trying to come to conclusions, but often the most progressive and intelligent thought is bought about through erratic mental tangents and unscrupulous cognitivity.

There are certain points I do not disagree with though, for example Carr says that “We can expect … that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.” Yes I agree – I imagine that using the internet as a primary resource has perhaps changed the way we think, though I disagree that this is a bad thing and it cannot be said that people are becoming less intelligent.

Our brains may be evolving, but as is such the point of evolution, to do so in accordance with our surroundings. The internet allows us to digest information quickly and easily. I don’t think any study has been carried out but I would be unsurprised to find that twenty something’s of today know more in terms of raw information (be it on pop culture or otherwise) if questioned than perhaps fifty years ago.

The internet pays my rent so of course I am biased but it is an interesting debate.

Wot do u thnk?

 

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