Is The Internet Making People Dumber

Recently I read an article about a study published by a professor who claims that the Internet has made people dumber--- the use of instant/text message slang, the decline of newspaper readership, and just outright less use of the brain. The Internet was designed to revolutionize the way people access information making them more efficient and knowledgeable, yet this professor claims it has had the opposite effect, especially on kids. Of course one could argue that the Internet has made information more readily available and accessible, information that people would never have gotten otherwise. This includes the news from around the world, learning of other cultures from friends made via Internet half a world away. The Internet has also made it harder for people to commit wrongdoing and get away with it. It's true less people read the newspaper, but sites like CNN has a very high traffic volume. We could blame the decline of book reading amongst children and teens on the Internet, but to be honest, children weren't reading much anyway since the immense popularity of video games. The Internet actually provides a way for those same kids to gather information they otherwise would not have sought out because it would have meant reading a book. We as a society can't blame the Internet for making people dumber, if people are getting dumber there are a host of factors to consider, including video game play, parent's not concerned about their children's education, school's focus on testing and not necessarily learning, television, ...etc. There are so many factors that may contribute to our kids being viewed as dumber. I don't believe out children are getting dumber, I believe that just don't know the things we were taught in school. They have no real use for them. Sure a child may not know Shakespeare, but if he can program a computer game, he's a technical genius. People aren't necessarily getting dumber, but rather focusing on areas that actually interest them and pertain to our new technology driven world. Besides not being book smart doesn't necessarily lead to the label of dumb. Dumb is a word overused by people who are book smart and who are extremely single minded. Sure there are dumb people out their and usually they are the ones with the education and no common sense.