I would argue that the internet made a lot of people less smart because it has evolved from something that was exclusive by a highly do it yourself nature at first and but by bit, people gave up the do it yourself approach to go and use Facebook, YouTube, etc, where a lot of the work is done for you. Not having to do as much of the work yourself makes you arguably less bright because you don’t have to put as much thought into it. Don’t get me wrong, there are those that have gotten rich off of using platforms on the internet but for most of them? Not so much.
I think there is a lot of validity to what you say, and it is something I have had a lot of conversations with people on.
We offload things now, and we expect to access it when we need it by going onto the Internet and getting it on the fly, then we purge it again from our memory when the task is done. That is not a bad thing in some respects, but I have always suspected that comes with a price in some way.
I mean, as a guy who has crossed the age threshold when I can refer to myself with a straight face as a “Senior Citizen”, I find myself, when mentally stuck, helped by being able to look up that stupid, elusive thing on the Internet.
Before the Internet, I guess people like me would just suffer with it until that misplaced data miraculously enters our heads hours or days later.
Or in the middle of the night.
And you people out there know who you are...:)