# Has access to the internet and mobile devices increased crystallized intelligence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 9, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849 "2019-03-09T22:21:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/1 "2019-03-09T22:21:16Z")
> **[Fluid and crystallized intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence)** > > The concepts of fluid intelligence (gf) and crystallized intelligence (gc) were introduced in 1963 by the psychologist Raymond Cattell. According to Cattell's psychometrically-based theory, general intelligence (g) is subdivided into gf and gc. Fluid intelligence is the ability to solve novel reasoning problems and is correlated with a number of important skills such as comprehension, problem-solving, and learning. Crystallized intelligence, on the other hand, involves the ability to ded Fluid an... > [@](#): > > Fluid intelligence or fluid reasoning is the capacity to reason and solve novel problems, independent of any knowledge from the past.[2] It is the ability to analyze novel problems, identify patterns and relationships that underpin these problems and the extrapolation of these using logic. It is necessary for all logical problem solving. Fluid reasoning includes inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. > > Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use skills, knowledge, and experience. It does not equate to memory, but it does rely on accessing information from long-term memory. Crystallized intelligence is one’s lifetime of intellectual achievement, as demonstrated largely through one’s vocabulary and general knowledge. This improves somewhat with age, as experiences tend to expand one’s knowledge. Crystallized intelligence is indicated by a person’s depth and breadth of general knowledge, vocabulary, and the ability to reason using words and numbers. It is the product of educational and cultural experience in interaction with fluid intelligence. Computers haven’t reached a point where they are increasing our fluid intelligence by much yet, I don’t think. There are programs here and there but they are speciality programs. However via the internet people have access to large amounts of experience and knowledge that they really didn’t have before (its much more convenient than the library or encyclopedias). When I have car troubles, I am usually able to pinpoint what is wrong just by googling or failing that, starting a thread somewhere and asking mechanics. So has it been studied to see if individual human crystallized intelligence has gone up any due to the internet? I know the internet is also full of fake and bad information. Plus that information already exists, its not like humanity got smarter because we learned things we already know. But on an individual level, it seems like people have access to more wisdom and problem solving skills than they did in the past, which seems like it’d improve crystallized intelligence. But I’m not sure honestly. In a way it seems like people’s fluid intelligence went up by accessing other people’s crystallized intelligence. People are better at novel problem solving because we access the experience and wisdom of other people who have been there and done that before. Personally I notice at least some difference in my problem solving abilities (at least in some areas) due to being able to access the knowledge of other people more easily via the internet. But in other areas, I haven’t seen much improvement. But I’ve had medical problems I was able to diagnose and treat at home, car problems I was able to diagnose and buy the right parts for (I let my mechanic replace the parts though), I’ve dealt with pest control using information other people acquired, etc. Yeah that information existed before the internet, but it was much harder to dig up and utilize. Back in the early 1990s, I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that on my own even with libraries. However I still could’ve visited medical professionals, mechanics, exterminators, etc. to gather useful info. Are these terms even universally accepted? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/2 "2019-03-09T22:31:00Z")
I’ve never heard the terms fluid and crystallized intelligence before. [Google Ngrams](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Crystallized+intelligence%2C+fluid+intelligence&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CCrystallized%20intelligence%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cfluid%20intelligence%3B%2Cc0) reveals that fluid intelligence is far more common a term. That’s probably because fluid intelligence can be learned and people are pushing feel-good methods to improve it. [Here’s an article](https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-improve-fluid-intelligence-in-the-age-of-crystallised-intelligence-3968a512b994) that isn’t complete woo, i.e. it says basic things that everybody always says. If crystallized intelligence stems from age and experience, then expecting computers to improve that is looking in the wrong direction. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/3 "2019-03-09T22:32:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If crystallized intelligence stems from age and experience, then expecting computers to improve that is looking in the wrong direction. But computers allow us to access other people’s age and experience. Thats the point. I’m not getting wiser, I just have access to a large pool of other wise people now, which makes me wiser (assuming I know how to reach out to them and filter through the good and bad answers). ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/4 "2019-03-09T23:41:01Z")
Yep, it’s allowing us to act in a far more informed manner and share what we learn without having to publish a book. That said there are negatives that take advantage of the same mechanisms, but I think overall it’s a net positive. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/5 "2019-03-09T23:53:07Z")
> [@Littleman](#): > > Yep, it’s allowing us to act in a far more informed manner and share what we learn without having to publish a book. That said there are negatives that take advantage of the same mechanisms, but I think overall it’s a net positive. I agree, but I don’t know if any metrics have changed to reflect this. GDP growth isn’t faster. Human health isn’t better (as far as I can tell). Shouldn’t there be improvements in quality, efficiency, etc. that are occurring on a wide enough scale that they can be measured due to having access to so much knowledge? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/6 "2019-03-10T00:19:22Z")
The terms “fluid intelligence” and “crystallized intelligence” are rather bizarre and IMHO unnecessary. Back in the day, we would just call the former “intelligence” and the latter “knowledge”. And yes, the Internet has phenomenally increased our _ **access to** _ the latter, which is not quite the same as inherently possessing it. But I never cease to be amazed by the ease with which the Internet can inform and clarify on virtually any subject that I happen to think of. That has to be profoundly transformative. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/7 "2019-03-10T00:49:53Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > But computers allow us to access other people’s age and experience. Thats the point. I’m not getting wiser, I just have access to a large pool of other wise people now, which makes me wiser (assuming I know how to reach out to them and filter through the good and bad answers). By the limited experience I’ve had with the terms, you’re looking at it wrong. Having access to information is not the same as understanding how to process that information. I had access to tons of information, as well as wise people, in college. I had no life experience to be able to process this access. Being deluged with a bigger hose wouldn’t have made a difference. Only living another 50 years has. ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/8 "2019-03-10T03:28:53Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I agree, but I don’t know if any metrics have changed to reflect this. > > GDP growth isn’t faster. Human health isn’t better (as far as I can tell). Shouldn’t there be improvements in quality, efficiency, etc. that are occurring on a wide enough scale that they can be measured due to having access to so much knowledge? How would we decide which? And if the effect is well diversified and/or the net effect in any one of them is small or incremental it would be impossible to show a correlation, it would be attributed to other factors too easily. Maybe it could be added to the list of possible contributors to the great American crime decline? Idk, good question, impossible to answer definitively though IMO. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/9 "2019-03-10T04:07:13Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The terms “fluid intelligence” and “crystallized intelligence” are rather bizarre and IMHO unnecessary. Back in the day, we would just call the former “intelligence” and the latter “knowledge”. And yes, the Internet has phenomenally increased our _ **access to** _ the latter, which is not quite the same as inherently possessing it. But I never cease to be amazed by the ease with which the Internet can inform and clarify on virtually any subject that I happen to think of. That has to be profoundly transformative. I have seen “fluid intelligence” used in IQ discussions and research. > **[Clarity in short-term memory shows no link with IQ](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101129121123.htm)** > > One person correctly remembers four of eight items just seen but is fuzzy on details. Another person recalls only two of the items but with amazingly precise clarity. So what ability translates to higher IQ? According to a new study the answer is... > [@](#): > > One person correctly remembers four of eight items just seen but is fuzzy on details. Another person recalls only two of the items but with amazingly precise clarity. So what ability translates to higher IQ? > > According to a University of Oregon study, the answer is very clear: More items stored in short-term memory is linked to greater fluid intelligence, as measured in IQ tests. The resolution of those memories, while important in many situations, shows no relationship with fluid intelligence. > > The notion that numbers of items is vitally important to short-term memory has been shown in previous studies at the UO. Those studies found that people, generally, have a capacity to temporarily store three to five items in short-term memory. Previous research has shown that capacity in short-term memory is a reliable predictor of an individual’s IQ. > > However, the new study, published in the October issue of the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, sought to take a more comprehensive look at the issue to determine which aspects of memory capacity explained the link with fluid intelligence. > > “The number of things people can remember is robustly correlated with fluid intelligence – the larger number remembered, the higher the IQ.” said Edward Awh, a psychology professor and a member of the Oregon Visual Working Memory & Attention Lab. “Resolution in memory is not predictive of IQ at all.” Of course, as others note, what IQ tests usually look for is not the totality of what intelligence is. > **[How AI can bring on a second Industrial Revolution](https://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_how_ai_can_bring_on_a_second_industrial_revolution/transcript?language=en)** > > "The actual path of a raindrop as it goes down the valley is unpredictable, but the general direction is inevitable," says digital visionary Kevin Kelly -- and technology is much the same, driven by patterns that are surprising but inevitable. Over... > [@](#): > > So let me talk about those three different aspects. The first one is: our own intelligence has a very poor understanding of what intelligence is. We tend to think of intelligence as a single dimension, that it’s kind of like a note that gets louder and louder. It starts like with IQ measurement. It starts with maybe a simple low IQ in a rat or mouse, and maybe there’s more in a chimpanzee, and then maybe there’s more in a stupid person, and then maybe an average person like myself, and then maybe a genius. And this single IQ intelligence is getting greater and greater. That’s completely wrong. That’s not what intelligence is – not what human intelligence is, anyway. It’s much more like a symphony of different notes, and each of these notes is played on a different instrument of cognition. > > There are many types of intelligences in our own minds. We have deductive reasoning, we have emotional intelligence, we have spatial intelligence; we have maybe 100 different types that are all grouped together, and they vary in different strengths with different people. And of course, if we go to animals, they also have another basket – another symphony of different kinds of intelligences, and sometimes those same instruments are the same that we have. They can think in the same way, but they may have a different arrangement, and maybe they’re higher in some cases than humans, like long-term memory in a squirrel is actually phenomenal, so it can remember where it buried its nuts. But in other cases they may be lower. > > When we go to make machines, we’re going to engineer them in the same way, where we’ll make some of those types of smartness much greater than ours, and many of them won’t be anywhere near ours, because they’re not needed. So we’re going to take these things, these artificial clusters, and we’ll be adding more varieties of artificial cognition to our AIs. We’re going to make them very, very specific. > > So your calculator is smarter than you are in arithmetic already; your GPS is smarter than you are in spatial navigation; Google, Bing, are smarter than you are in long-term memory. And we’re going to take, again, these kinds of different types of thinking and we’ll put them into, like, a car. The reason why we want to put them in a car so the car drives, is because it’s not driving like a human. It’s not thinking like us. That’s the whole feature of it. It’s not being distracted, it’s not worrying about whether it left the stove on, or whether it should have majored in finance. It’s just driving. -Kevin Kelly TED Talk - How AI can bring on a second Industrial Revolution ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/10 "2019-03-10T13:53:57Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I agree, but I don’t know if any metrics have changed to reflect this. > > GDP growth isn’t faster. Human health isn’t better (as far as I can tell). Shouldn’t there be improvements in quality, efficiency, etc. that are occurring on a wide enough scale that they can be measured due to having access to so much knowledge? If you don’t know if any metrics have changed, I suggest looking them up prior to posting incorrect information about GDP growth and human health. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/11 "2019-03-10T14:31:01Z")
GDP growth is stable and life expectancy isn’t changing. We aren’t entering an age of 4% GDP growth or healthspan and life expectancy increasing. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/12 "2019-03-10T15:30:40Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > GDP growth is stable and life expectancy isn’t changing. We aren’t entering an age of 4% GDP growth or healthspan and life expectancy increasing. Life expectancy has increased from [65 years to 72](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.dyn.le00.in) in the last 30 years, and I’d be astonished if one cause of that wasn’t the ease of transferring information, and remotely educating doctors provided by the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/13 "2019-03-10T15:44:28Z")
In western nations it seems to have gone up 3-5 years from 1990 to the present. However this trendline existed before the internet became mainstream, so I don’t know if the internet has been found to be a factor in it. Also the majority of the increases in life expectancy tend to be due to public health more than individualized medicine. However I’m wondering if morbidity is down. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/14 "2019-03-10T17:22:34Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > GDP growth is stable and life expectancy isn’t changing. We aren’t entering an age of 4% GDP growth or healthspan and life expectancy increasing. No, we aren’t entering that age. We’ve been living in it for [a while](https://www.statista.com/statistics/273951/growth-of-the-global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/). And obviously, as Steophan’s link showed, worldwide life expectancy is up 7 years. Non-western countries move up a higher percentage because they are starting from a lower base. You’re factually wrong on both claims. The world is demonstrably improving with little sign of its slowing down. (Unless climate change destroys living conditions.) I don’t see any way to attribute this to fluid or crystallized intelligence, even assuming those are separate rather than interconnected agencies. Advances aren’t like stones that you can place in one bucket or another. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/15 "2019-03-10T17:48:28Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > GDP growth is stable and life expectancy isn’t changing. We aren’t entering an age of 4% GDP growth or healthspan and life expectancy increasing. Oh, and to add to this, [worldwide GDP growth is at roughly 3.5%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product), so you are technically right, but it’s not far from your figure. It’s certainly not just the internet that’s causing this. but technological advances in general - but they are all tied into the internet, and have been for a couple of decades now. ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/16 "2019-03-11T02:53:37Z")
So it’s been the biggest boon for places that previously had more limited resources, like access to libraries and up to date information. Makes sense Even more awesome that it’s serving as a. Equalizer in some ways. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/17 "2019-03-11T04:26:16Z")
> [@Littleman](#): > > So it’s been the biggest boon for places that previously had more limited resources, like access to libraries and up to date information. > Makes sense > > Even more awesome that it’s serving as a. Equalizer in some ways. In theory, you’d assume the biggest benefits would be in the developing world where they don’t have libraries, doctors, and various professionals (mechanics, repairmen, exterminators, etc). In the developed world we could just use those tools instead, even though they aren’t as good they’re still decent. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-access-to-the-internet-and-mobile-devices-increased-crystallized-intelligence/830849/18 "2019-03-11T23:57:13Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Oh, and to add to this, [worldwide GDP growth is at roughly 3.5%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product), so you are technically right, but it’s not far from your figure. > > It’s certainly not just the internet that’s causing this. but technological advances in general - but they are all tied into the internet, and have been for a couple of decades now. A good chunk of that is from population growth. If we look at real per capita global GDP, the exponential constant comes out to about 0.016/yr. But of course steady exponential growth means, by definition, that the rate is increasing over time. So real per capita GDP increased at $146/year over the past 20 years, but only at $82/year over the previous 20 years. Life expectancy continues to increase logarithmically. Infant and under-5 mortality continue to fall.