Or are we merely adding a new way of spreading ideas...

Just read Does the Internet Make You Smarter? By Clay Shirky.  Some really good historical points on how the advent of the printing press did create wide spread us of printed material and that we had erotic novels 100 years before we had scientific journals.  So the internet might make us dumb on a depth of thought point of view but there are some great things that come out of the internet such as Patientslikeme.com.

I agree with his view point, it is not about the media and the distractions per se but more about the change in human evolution.  We show less depth of thought by using technology but we also gain vast quantities of knowledge that is profound.  If you read comic books all day, doesnt mean your brain is somehow going to be more of a critical thinker(of course I pick the one things after reading it, might not be true, probably need to do a test on that…).

-Rob

Or are we merely adding a new way of spreading ideas...