Info Flee the internet you fools, or, it really is bad for you.

[Muse]

To live is to be.

Life, call it "sacred," call it "the universe aware of itself," at least insofar as human existence has engendered that:

 

[Jaskalas]

I agree. However the intarwebs, aren't merely a new source of information and entertainment but, the catalyst for the decay of problem solving and creativity.

I feel like no one has adequately explained the decay of problem solving and creativity. At least not beyond what, to me, is very likely the sole responsibility of smart phones. My question... is there a problem beyond social media hanging out in your pocket and following you around everywhere you go?

That's the part I feel like people are trying to get at, but I am drawing a blank for the "why" and the "how".

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

The internet has made text books obsolete. It has also created new forms of communication and entertainment. That is all. If people could not learn to critically think before the internet, I posit that the internet alone has not changed that. Moreover, one would imagine critical thinking is the purpose of school, yet all my experience has taught me that schooling consists of mere rote memorization. Which brings me back to textbooks. One could read ahead, learn the facts, and wonder WTF the teacher or school system was even present for. But I digress.

If people could learn to critically think before, but fail to do so today, my argument is that it is social media enabled by cell phones that is negatively impacting one's capacity to focus, pay attention, and properly learn. The problem is not that information is readily available now, it is our poor habits and misuse of that information. We need to teach people HOW to learn. And I posit that this study demonstrates that no one is actually doing that.

Electronic textbooks are fine.

 

[JSt0rm]

Baby boomers were so worried about kids playing video games and being online. Nobody thought “what would happen to a boomer brain that grew up in a different way when it got online and had access to unverifiable information”.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I feel like no one has adequately explained the decay of problem solving and creativity. At least not beyond what, to me, is very likely the sole responsibility of smart phones. My question... is there a problem beyond social media hanging out in your pocket and following you around everywhere you go?

That's the part I feel like people are trying to get at, but I am drawing a blank for the "why" and the "how".

Human attitude. Why learn the basics when you can just look them up? The problem is never mastering the basics so, there is no foundation to build on. The problem is not understanding how people learn. This in turn becomes disdain for "wasting time" on learning the basics. It's a self feeding cycle of mediocrity. It comes down to intellectual laziness.

 

[Jaskalas]

Human attitude. Why learn the basics when you can just look them up? The problem is never mastering the basics so, there is no foundation to build on.

Wait, you are distinguishing between learning and looking up information?

I mean, "looking it up" is essentially the reason books exist. Do people not learn when they read a book?

I am missing how this problem works. I believe you are suggesting that people are no longer memorizing or absorbing information because "internet". If there is a problem, surely it is based on the fact that people have their faces glued to a cell phone 24/7, and this is a matter of poor / destructive habits.

 

[Lanyap]

Baby boomers were so worried about kids playing video games and being online. Nobody thought “what would happen to a boomer brain that grew up in a different way when it got online and had access to unverifiable information”.

I guess those old farts were right about gaming. WHO now officially recognizes Gaming Disorder as a disease.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I guess those old farts were right about gaming. WHO now officially recognizes Gaming Disorder as a disease.

Brain rot and addiction aren't the same thing. You can go ahead and toss Facebook and Twitter in the gaming disorder category, people are just addicted to social media

 

[Muse]

Human attitude. Why learn the basics when you can just look them up? The problem is never mastering the basics so, there is no foundation to build on. The problem is not understanding how people learn. This in turn becomes disdain for "wasting time" on learning the basics. It's a self feeding cycle of mediocrity. It comes down to intellectual laziness.

This is from the 19th century and I think it's still absolutely "the shit!" The following quotation should be written in stone and openly displayed, say, next to the Lincoln Monument in Washington D.C. At the United Nations, too.:

- - - -
"Clever people may learn as much as they wish of the results of science--still one will always notice in their conversation, and especially in their hypotheses, that they lack the scientific spirit; they do not have that instinctive mistrust of the aberrations of thought which through long training are deeply rooted in the soul of every scientific person. They are content to find any hypothesis at all concerning some matter; then they are all fire and flame for it and think that is enough. To have an opinion means for them to fanaticize for it and thenceforth to press it to their hearts as a conviction. If something is unexplained, they grow hot over the first notion that comes into their heads and looks like an explanation--which results progressively in the worst consequences, especially in the sphere of politics. For that reason everyone should now study at least one science from the bottom up: then he will know what method means and how important is the utmost circumspection." -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

 

[Jaskalas]

It is not enough to simply know a fact. One must learn how to properly apply it.

A solid sentiment @Muse, but I remain uncertain as to what changed in the process of teaching kids how to think. Aside from the part where schools (largely) did not do that in the first place. Is that it, have the rigors of modern educational administration, "No child left behind", in fact left everyone behind? Have we abandoned scientific reason for the madness of rote memorization? That would certainly fit with your argument.

If schools need less electronic devices and less distractions then I could certainly appreciate that. But a greater failing would be found at the very core of the instructor's assignment. Are students supposed to pass a single specified test through brute force, or should they learn how to pass all tests through proper habits and scientific rigor?

Which has nothing at all to do with the internet making it easier to look things up. It boils down to people who were never taught how to learn in the first place. Our society has essentially abandoned trying to teach people, and I could take the OP's study as a demonstration of that.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Wait, you are distinguishing between learning and looking up information?

I mean, "looking it up" is essentially the reason books exist. Do people not learn when they read a book?

I am missing how this problem works. I believe you are suggesting that people are no longer memorizing or absorbing information because "internet". If there is a problem, surely it is based on the fact that people have their faces glued to a cell phone 24/7, and this is a matter of poor / destructive habits.

Learning occurs through repetition and practice. Textbooks (even poor ones) tend to focus on the steps to the results. The information from the web tend to focus on the results. You previously mentioned Wiki. It is in part responsible for the assumptions of affected yoots. All of Wiki is treated by these yoots as a collection of facts. Outside of scientific results and the results of logical constructs, there are no facts. Interpretation of data is more important than the data itself.

I agree that having a cell phone glued to your face is a poor and destructive habit. This bad habit in conjunction with the format of information on the web has rewired how people think. Once formed, can this way of thinking be reversed? I believe it can if the effort is made early enough. However, there are tremendous societal and corporate forces opposing such efforts.