Latest evidence that the Internet is making kids dumb

Researchers on Leu's team asked a group of students to hunt down information on the critter, which of course does not exist. But the same researchers pulled a bit of trickery on the students -- they directed them to a website dedicated to saving the mythical tree octopus from extinction. And presto: the kids taking part in the study fell for the hoax and even continued to believe in the tree octopus after the study's leaders explained that there was no such thing. According to Leu, the founder and director of the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut, the moral of the exercise is simple: "anyone can publish anything on the Internet and today's students are not prepared to critically evaluate the information they find there." But is this really a "learning crisis" that's "caused by the internet?" Or, for that matter, is it a problem that's really specific to the internet at all? Indeed, the paucity of critical thought in our nation's schools has bedeviled experts for a very long time -- long before the internet made its sinister appearance on the scene. In 2009 Dr. Robert Rose, a longtime Southern California educator, wrote a piece for the Huffington Post lamenting his struggles over the years in being able to teach kids to think critically. Rose argues that doing so will inevitably ruffle the feathers of some parents and educational bureaucrats.

Yahoo News Article

My argument is simple: DUH!

Duh these kids believed that it was real when their teacher told them about the link. It seems to me that this is a failure to teach proper research skills rather than proper critical thinking skills.

Saying that the Internet is making kids dumb because they fail to be paranoid enough to think their teacher is pulling their leg is stupid.

The Internet doesn't make people dumb.

They were dumb before hand.

Yup. The Internet contains lots of information and thus overloads the minds of kids, making them dumb socially. Instead of conversing with real people or writing a book or painting a scene, they are staring into the computer. Plus, sitting down for prolong periods of time is not good for the body (namely the back and behind).

Dumb conclusion from a dumb study.

With that mentality, the conclusion should be "Children are gullible and will believe something if you say it in a manner in which they can relate to".

Meaning, if I go tell my brother sacrificing goat's bring him closer to health, he will think I am crazy.

If I tell him the liver of a goat has oil that will heal sickness, he may just believe me.

See what I mean?

People really need to be careful of how they present conclusions.

The Internet, meaning, the first time in history in which education and information can come freely, is making kids stupid? That boils my blood.

I don't think it's necessarily the fault of the internet, more like humans in general tending to believe what is written if they have no prior information regarding the subject.

Imagine this. Print a tree octopus entry in an encyclopedia. Now put that encyclopedia in a library in the 19th century. Then tell a class to look it up. Of course they will believe it's real...it's written, they have no other information to tell them it is not real. Same with the internet. Except, with the internet, the class has access to other information to prove it is false.

The real issue is critical thinking skills, which are generally lacking in society as a whole. Only a certain percentage of individuals throughout history have shown the ability to question what is presented to them. It is only now more obvious because just about all information is available in seconds. Or, perhaps it is just easier to blame the internet than to say that most people are hard-headed.

reply to post by gnosticquasar


I think this is just teaching the kids to learn through mistakes.
Even before the internet came you could not trust everything you were told or read so it is just teaching them to check their facts. Sooner or later they would find out they are wrong when someone else tells them a tree octopus does not exist and then they would question other things they have 'learnt'

Originally posted by gandhi
Meaning, if I go tell my brother sacrificing goat's bring him closer to health, he will think I am crazy.

If I tell him the liver of a goat has oil that will heal sickness, he may just believe me.

whats worse is this was their teacher, it'd be more like if you where a doctor telling a patient to try goats liver oil.

reply to post by gnosticquasar


Bingo. You can't teach critical thinking skills, if you're teaching for a damned standardized bubble-test. THAT is what's making kids dumb these days. Who needs to be able to apply reason and logic when you're always presented with a 1 in 4 chance of getting the perfect answer?

Just look at 4chan.org for example, counter productiveness outweighs productiveness to some extent, but when they join forces they are unstoppable, they're very very creative and sometimes they can put themselves to good use in exposing flaws in society.