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06/23/2007: "Is the Internet Dumbing Us Down?"

Is the Internet dumbing us down? - The Practical Futurist - MSNBC.com

Keens original subtitle, simplified before publication, sums up his argument: How the democratization of the digital world is assaulting our economy, our culture and our values. He looks at the various user-centered Web activities that epitomize Web 2.0 -- YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, blogs, file-sharing and so forth -- and ties these, variously, to loss of accuracy in news and information, the declining quality of music and video, the troubled economics of the content industries and even an erosion of original thinking (as students use Google to create "cut-and-paste" term papers).

Information is now in the hands of less-credible sources. I love Wikipedia, but I also know it is only a guide, not an authoritative source. Wikipedia entries are modified by anonymous people, and there is very little accountability. The same goes for other web sites with information; anyone can put together an authoritative looking and sounding web site, but are you really doing justice to the truth?

For example, there is a battle raging in the Prather/Prater genealogy community. (My grandmother Buck was a Prater, and the line can be traced back tens of generations into England and Wales). One trusted researcher claims to have found a definitive link between the Prater ancestors and Welsh royalty. The only place where the linking ancestor’s name can be found on the Web is on Prater and Prather websites. Imagine that . . . could it be that the existence of this person is mythical and anecdotal only amongst family circles? One person with “authority” said it, so now hundreds across the world are running with it.

Keen worries that traditional media companies may be done in by the “cult of amateurs.” While probably not due to “amateurs,” it is indeed the case that virtually all of the old-line content producers, from encyclopedias and record companies to television, newspapers and now even pornographers, are experiencing painful business pressures as the Internet absorbs and reorders media.

The “amateur” has become the new “professional” in many genres. But here’s the catch: how many people are paying the new professionals for their work? Information is cheap, and apparently so are the people who wish to get it.

I don’t think that this is the absolute end of the authoritative information source. Traditional print encyclopedias that once sat in my home have gone the way of “push” sources. For example, an encyclopedia “pulled” information into a central source. Today, the information sources are “pushing” their content to the Web. Information, even authoritative information, is more decentralized. It's out there, and may be more of a challenge to find, but the pool is deep and rich once you find it.