Does The Internet Make You Smarter Analysis

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“Does the Internet Make You Smarter?” In the article “Does The Internet Make you Smarter?” the author, Clay Shirky is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects
 of Internet technologies. He states his argument about whether or not the internet is making society smarter and whether it enhances the success individuals achieve in life. To do this, he uses surveys as evidence and his past experiences on the effects of internet on society to persuade his audience to show his credibility. His main idea of the article was explaining to his readers that the internet is indeed making society more intelligent. He provides the audience with many contrasting points on how the media is making us smarter as a society, …show more content…

He compares the YouTube videos and novels. They are both and not alike at the same time, because both were an overproduction of information. He included a quote from Edgar Allen Poe saying "The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information." Not only does this affect the average quality and intelligence of all materials but it also makes it harder to find accurate information. Today’s age’s version of this is YouTube by providing so many videos while most of them are purely for entertainment and do very little to benefit your knowledge. The problem with this view is that the internet is not just YouTube. There are so many uses for the internet and other tools of this world such as cell phones, cars, etc. Making learning easier is not going to make people “dumber.” Each and everyday there are new things to use technology for. The advantage of having technology is making us smarter as individuals and as a society by making information more accessible. Towards the end of the article Shirky begins to pull the readers in to show how “we are all living in the largest expansion of expressive capability.” Using the internet for education and other day to day activities will expand our society and create a new more adaptable cultural to live in. Our society has increased the freedom of creativity which is overall leading to the expansion of

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