QUOTE(Text @ Sat 12th December 2009, 9:39am)
The web is just facilitating things for those who don't want to check facts in a library.
Obviously many people don't even stay 2 minutes on a page to read something, maybe they read the first 3 lines and then change page. TL;DR
Internet is making people lazy, not necessarily stupid. Although there are people who believe things without checking in depth. But the same goes for other media, the radio, the television.
But without doubt, reading books helps absorb more information, as opposed to the net where things circulate quickly and are more graphic.
Odd that I would be saying this to someone with your username, but I disagree. Radio was a move away from text. So was the telephone (but not the telegraph.) Television was a move away from text. The internet, and especially web 2.0 is
resurgent text. The videos, images and sounds are ephemeral and tangential. The core of this technology is based on the digital computer's hand-glove type of relationship with the manipulation of text. Because this parallels the human minds hand-glove relationship between thought and language/writing it is going to last after your uncle puts away his video camcorder, your daughter gets bored with the digital camera in her phone and Durova tires of whatever it is she does with images.
The problem is that internet culture has placed this gift into the hands of idiots. There are reasons for this. Most likely it has much to do with first placing the technology into the hands of geeky nerds with skills needed to access the first clunky applications such as BB and Usenet. They basically have nothing to say but lots of ability to say it.