"The Internet makes us dumb"...Really?

An interesting article I read from the TechCrunch on-line magazine highlighted some drawbacks of the Internet from the viewpoint of Doris Lessing, the recently awarded nobel peace prize winner. This article from TechCrunch appeared to mock Lessing’s viewpoint of the internet. According to an excerpt from the article, Lessing noted that:

“the inanities of the internet have seduced a generation, and we live in a fragmenting culture where people read nothing and know nothing of the world”.

In reading this I wondered about the context with which her statements were being interperated. I have long been a proponent of not judging a writer without reading his/her entire article as complete reading usually puts into context various opinions of the writer.
To obtain a complete picture I read the entire article she wrote from “A hunger for Books” – Doris Lessing (published by The Guardian) – 12/08//07. This article allowed me to put into context what Doris meant in the article. As we all can agree (including Doris), the coming about of the internet was a revolution for information access. However this ease of access to information can stump a child’s intellectual development if not used in the appropriate manner. Take for instance the networking sites of Facebook and Myspace. I know too many people including myself who spend hours a day checking status, email, etc. These hours could have been spent doing something more productive.

From the article “A hunger for books”, Doris appears to be frustrated by the sharp contrast in demand for novels by kids in well-off societies versus those in impoverished societies. There is no dispute that reading a well written novel is better for a child’s writing development than reading a short article on-line. It was however interesting to note that Lessing’s unflatering remarks about bloggers may have some truth to it. As I read through the comments posted to the TechCrunch article I noted for a fact how most bloggers had not read the entire article from the Guardian, but instead chose to leave blog comments disagreeing totally with Lessing phrased comments about the evolution of the internet.

As much as I see the value of blogging in communicating between different people it was apparent that a lot of bloggers failed to put into context the nature of Lessing’s remarks. While bloggers tend to critique others shouldn't they also be evaluated?