“Not to be contrary, but it also renders some children faster and smarter than we have ever been.”
There will always be a cognitive elite.
I suspect that the internet will further separate the cognitive elite from the rest for whom creativity simply lies in a properly worded google search. No analysis required.
“The levels of the sciences that young people are required to tackle are sometimes much harder than what I dealt with in high school.”
I do not see this, rather I see the opposite. They may be exposed to key-words, but they are by no means required to tackle sciences. Those that do are fewer than when I was in high school - and soon those classes will be so poorly populated that they’ll get rid of them altogether.
The middle 3 cognitive quintiles are most severely impacted by this phenomenon, in my opinion. They aren’t forced to endure the rigors of analysis that more often than not does not come naturally to them.
it is scary.
I guess. I just know that the SAT is harder now than it was when I took it. My kids had to know more in High School than I did. I am not sure that all of this is the fault of the internet, but more a function of the breakdown on society in general and especially the family. In general though, I think we now know more than we ever have and knowledge is greater than it ever was.
These new devices and methods are all tools that can extend and expand one’s capabilities, or they can become crutches that reduce one’s capacities and capabilities. For example, look at calculators. In the right hands, they extend what a person can do in a short amount of time and free them to examine more complex problems. In the wrong hands, they can erode one’s capabilities to perform basic math and to visualize numbers. They made a lot of people “dumber”, but they also made SOME people much more capable (hopefully, I wound up in the latter group).
Actually, there can be a lot of thinking that can go into a GOOD Google search, that can quickly separate the wheat from the chaff. This is somewhat analogous to being able to work the Dewey Decimal System in a large library with a good catalogue.