Has the internet increased or decreased ignorance?

Great Debates
21

Definitely decreased ignorance. It only seems the other way around because we’re just starting to see exactly how much ignorance is really out there.

The internets contain all sorts of shoddy information, but reasonable people can usually filter out the really bad stuff. And if they can’t, someone nearby (on the other side of the world) can help them along, providing them with actual factual citations.

And if they don’t want to be helped along… well, then their fight with ignorance was lost long before the advent of global interconnectivity.

22

As an incidental note, I highly recommend a Canadian TV series called History Bites, which never hesitated to point out just how casually ignorant our ancestors were on just about everything.

23

I think that the internet has exposed a lot of ignorance.

24

Right. The internet gives everyone a (pseudo) anonymous forum where they can show their true colors. Because of this, we have exposed the crazies. However, we have also exposed the rational-minded. If ignorance has ever been fought generally (and it has) then it will continue to be fought on this new medium. It’ll probably take another full generation to see the fruits of that labor.

25

Good point.

26

As C. S. Lewis once said, “Truth and falsehood are opposed; but truth is the norm not of truth only but of falsehood also.” Yes, there are some extreme off-the-deep-end right-wing sites, and some extreme off-the-deep-end left-wing sites, and both of those will be ignorant. But if you take both of them together, you can be pretty sure that the truth lies somewhere in between them. And yes, people really do end up taking both of them. Even the craziest of extremists will still have a cousin or co-worker or whatever somewhere who will e-mail them the other side of the argument.

So, I maintain that on the whole, the Internet has made great strides towards decreasing ignorance. Any broad dissemination of information, even bad information, is bound to have that effect.

27

I mean, they wouldn’t even admit to being ignorant if they were accused of it.

We obviously mix in different circles. The average person I meet is more interested in The X-Factor or their local football team.

I am talking from experience, and realise I’m in the wrong forum for that - unless I was a sociology professor, which I’m not! - so I’ll respectfully back out of this GD and watch from the sidelines.

28

Decreased ignorance and made it depressingly clear just how much of it there is.

29

I would argue that it will always be up to the own basic belief structure of the surfer.

You can easily find anything online which backs your personal beliefs, no matter how crazy or absurd…someone somewhere will agree with you. I do think one of the main problems with the internet in general is it is only your own choice if you actually do want a opposing viewpoint.

For example if you believe 9/11 was a inside job then everything you find online will support that basis, as everything which claims it was not is supplied by “The Man”.

So as a potential research tool its importance can not be underestimated, and as a disinformation machine is also can not be underestimated. And honestly, how many people who assume something is true try really hard to disprove their basic premise, i can not imagine that if you are a die hard Leftist then you will attempt to check out the opposing view, And if you do you will smash into die hard Rightist’s.

So i would assume that most people stick to their own comforts zones of information(IE the ones that agree with them) and any attempts to learn more are based on the same (possibly false) premise.

Also similar ideas clump together online, so if you believe in ghosts…any research you do will almost certainly lead to the loch ness monster and little green men, and it is hard to find a site online which promotes and hopes for actual discussion and reasoned debate without a pre-standing base viewpoint. IE aliens are real…so ANY footage ANYONE claims as evidence should be considered PROOF!. Which in turn can lead to polarization of views and a lack of critical thought, which surely kills any ability to learn and develop intelligent arguments.

Also as has been mentioned anything you see online is only as believable as you think it is, which again goes back to your preconceived belief system. And it is the easiest thing in the world for anyone to lie online without repercussions, which again can damage thought.

Also i think the point should be made that it is so quick to switch sites and move along that if you read and see anything you find offensive or false to dismiss everything else the site has to offer, or opinion suggested to the point of stopping yourself from looking closer to see if they indeed do have a point.

The best thing(i believe) the internet has to offer is choice, as it is far easier to goto different sources for information. If i may make a premise, that if you live in a small town,everyone works in a local area, and everyone reads the same newspaper and watches the same news… you will all have to base your collective knowledge of the world on what the paper of tv anchor thought was important enough to report that day and its larger context could be lost. However, with the access to the internet you are not reliant on the thoughts of such a limited number, or perspective of so few.

How else can we all sit here today scattered across the country and the world and freely share thoughts and ideas, to see exactly how someone on the other side of the world or totally different situation feels and believes and thinks?

I think that, that only can only be a good thing which allows for a greater understanding for all… but only if they choose to do so.

(that was alot more rambling and longer than i expected…so thanks for sticking with it)

30

I’m not sure I agree with that. Someone who doesn’t know something is ignorant. But it’s possible to not just be ignorant of certain facts; it’s possible to believe and act on the opposite.

People who don’t understand how vaccinations work generally just go along with what the doctor, or the state recommends. People who believe something totally false about vaccinations tend to actively make things worse.

To answer the OP, in spite of the fact that some people have used the internet to worsen ignorance, I believe that the overall effect has been to decrease ignorance.

31

The Internet has created a whole new category of not too bright people who wish to be knowledgeable about things but who cant be bothered,have the patience or intelligence to actually study the subject.
So because they wish to be instant pundits they Google a topic instead and leaving aside the amount of incorrect information on the Net(including Wikki,which Wikki entries are accurate,which are not?How can you tell the difference if you dont already know the subject?)they abstract an item out of context and are unable to understand what they’re reading but feel confident enough to regurgitate a garbled version to others.

If they cant find it on the Net then it doesn’t exist.
No sorry you’re wrong,cant find it anywhere.
But I’ve been there,I live there,thats my job,family etc.!
Never mind that its not on the net so you’re wrong.

Of course I’m not talking about the majority of Googlers but I do think a little (partially understood)knowledge can be worse then not knowing at all especially when you REALISE that you dont know at all.

You can lead a horse to water and not make it drink and you can put the sum total of human knowledge within someones grasp and they still wont be able to comprehend it.

32

Any machine learning expert (such as Google) will tell you that the performance of your algorithm depends primarily on the size and variety of your dataset. Pick any two algorithms and give them the same dataset and, while some will be better than others, they will all do pretty well. Give any one of the algorithms more data to consider and it will quickly begin to outperform the others.

The exact same principle holds for the human brain. None of us is born smart - we become smart through a gene-environment interaction. The genetic aspect is our incredible ability to process information. We have an exceptional ability to generalize (despite our many failures to generalize) our problem solving skills to any domain. We can essentially perform any computation that can be achieved in a lifetime. It follows from our knowledge of mathematics that, just like our algorithms, if you show one brain substantially more information than the other it will become smarter than the other.

This supposes of course that you’re actually engaging your brain on the Internet. I think the most you can really ask is, “Am I less ignorant because of the Internet?” I know I am far less ignorant - I spend the majority of my time reading the news, blogs, forums etc… My worldview pre and post-internet is drastically expanded. The Internet makes it very hard to remain ignorant because its so trivially easy to access information. And when you do access it it makes you smarter, thanks to the trick of evolution.

The Internet is really just a part of our evolution. Our brains were evolved for arbitrarily advanced social interaction and that is really what the internet sprouted out from. If you guys are becoming more ignorant on the Internet then you’re doing it wrong!

33

I was indifferent on this subject until I remembered my pet peeve: SPELLING!

It’s a definite yes on increasing ignorance.
Here’s my thread to squirm over: Facebook

Scroll through and if ANYONE can make out these posts, you are fluent in a language called idmiffghled.

ARRRRGH!

34

Something of an addendum to my first post, but an issue of the Economist that I just read stated that they wouldn’t be surprised if newspapers and magazines make a comeback if eReaders like the Kindle or the iPod reader become mass market.

35

I think Google has also helped spead the ignorance, because of the way their algorithm is structured, which gives some sites higher rank based simply on their ability to write a website the way Google says it should be done.

Sure there are other options but they are so small they are in effect, of no use.

Usenet is a great example of this. Until about 2001 it was still a fun place. Then it got simply overwhelmed with spam and junk posts. Eventually everyone who had anything decent to say got sick and left.

Most of these people moved to the forums on the World Wide Web. But then again you have censorship on forums.

For instance this site prides itself on fighting ignorance but a simple request for the website bugmenot was closed because the mod didn’t like it. The site isn’t illegal but it just went against a mod’s idea.

This control leads to lack of information. The comparison of a library in every town, is helpful but not valid, because in any library a librarian STILL makes the choice of what books to stock.

In certain cities like Chicago, with many branches much of the money spent produces multiple copies of the same book, with no real effort on rare books. So again your information is limited.

It’s like TV news. When I was doing research in Chicago, I found the five major TV station in Chicago presented nearly identical stories each night. Only the order changed. This isn’t MORE information. It’s just MORE of the same. It’s giving the illusion of choice.

36

Oh man, the internet has decreased ignorance in a massive way. I’m guessing that most of you who think it has increased ignorance are under 30? Or around that age?

I’m 45, and I can remember when a family had a big advantage if they owned an encyclopedia. The kids would get better educations because they’d have that amazing resource at their fingertips. Encyclopedias could could several thousand dollars, and people would borrow money against their houses if they had to so their kids would have a huge collection of knowledge available to them.

I can remember a time where, if I wanted to figure out how to install a faucet I’d have to drive to the library and look it up, then photocopy the pages and bring them home. That meant for a lot of mundane tasks around the house, I just wouldn’t do it because I didn’t know how and it was too painful to find out.

I don’t think some of you have a real appreciation for the fog of ignorance most people lived in before the internet came along. We weren’t as good as figuring out what things are worth. If we didn’t learn something in school, we often didn’t learn it at all. Even little things like learning to cook properly or learning how to play poker was difficult. History was something you talked about with friends, and the news was given to you through the filter of a handful of media outlets. If your particular interests weren’t common enough, you just didn’t learn about what was going on unless you subscribed to a journal or magazine that catered to it.

I can remember how much more difficult it was to write software back then, because I didn’t have instant access to a huge number of tutorial sites and reference works and other programming resources I use ten times a day. If I need to learn an algorithm or can’t recall the specifics of a concept I learned in college, I can look it up instantly.

As a consumer, I never really knew if the price I was being offered to buy a vehicle was reasonable or not. I really didn’t know how reliable the car was, or whether it satisfied other buyers. Now I can get black book values online, read customer ratings, and look up reliability statistics, and be a much more informed consumer.

Because of the internet, we are far, far more educated today than we ever were.

37

I think that the net has decreased ignorance over all. I was always someone who seemed to know more facts than those around me. I read voraciously and had a good memory. Getting those facts was not easy, I did not have a library card for much of my life and my mother did not buy many books. I did have an encyclopedia, bought just after I was born, and I read that.

There were many things that would come up in conversation that I had answers to that in my absence would have gone unanswered. There were many things that came up that had to go unanswered until I could do the research to answer them.

Very few people seemed to have the motivation to find the answers on their own. My family was the kind that during evening conversation we would come up with these questions and end up turning to the resources we had, namely that old encyclopedia and a paltry few reference books, for answers. More than one guest remarked how unusual this was. Now, many will fire up the computer to find the answer.

Sam Stone is right about hobbies and such. I have always had the motivation to go do the research when I wanted to do things, but often the information was not available unless I sought ought fairly specialized journals, and even then some things were just not easy to research. When I remodeled my sons room, there were many answers I never found in bound books. I found them because experienced people posted online how they did things. It is not uncommon to look up some problem and find several people sharing their ignorance and then an expert posts a compelling account of how he or she solves the problem with references to resources that I would not have found on my own. How to build a wooden wall on a concrete floor, and not use pressure treated lumber and not get rot was one such question I had answered in such a manner.
Not convinced? Try reading an old grade school social studies text. I remember that the section on Japan had little more information about how Japanese people wore kimonos tied with obis and took baths together. Imagine that being your main source of knowledge about Japan? It was for many.

38

285 years before the Netscape IPO, Alexander Pope pretty much nailed the early Internet age.

There are a lot of facts, and even some knowledge, on the internet… but very little wisdom. Well, that comes with age, they say…