Al Gore invented the internet. Or so the story goes. It’s hardly true, of course, but while he may not have invented the internet, he did support the development of the internet as a Congressman from 1977 – 1985. More recently, Gore has been involved in an internet venture called Current that hopes to “transform television by plugging it into the internet.” What’s interesting about this is that Gore also won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change. The fact that he served 8 years each as U.S. Vice President, Representative of the House, and Senator already says a lot about his capabilities as a government official. Add to that a Nobel Prize, and there’s no doubt we’re dealing with an intelligent person. Yet fellow Nobel laureate Doris Lessing firmly believes that “the internet makes us dumb.” If Gore managed to remain intelligent enough to win a Nobel Prize despite years of internet use and development, how do we come to terms with Lessing’s claim?
According to the TechCrunch article, Lessing’s primary complaint seems to be that people “read nothing and know nothing of the world.” She’s not alone – fellow sympathizer Andrew Keen believes that the internet is killing our culture since "without professional fact checkers, grammarians, and publishers,” internet sources are “by definition less accurate, reliable, and honest than professionally edited newspapers, encyclopedias, or books.” However, in light of recent scandals involving plagiarism by journalists, how can we be so sure of the sanctity of the printed word?
I’m not about to jump on my pro-internet soapbox and denounce the ideas put forth by Lessing or Keen. A lot of what is available on the internet is unfortunate – from mindless YouTube videos to pornography to trite blog posts about nothing, the internet can become a digital dumping ground for mediocrity. However, the key word here is can. The internet is a tool, and as such, it can be used for a number of inane/silly/stupid reasons. But that doesn’t mean it has to be. Think about the volumes of academic journals made available to students and teachers through resources such as Aladin. Or the countless newspapers that have created equivalent websites, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. Or how about Google’s initiative to digitize books through its Google Books Library Project? The internet is an amazing resource – it simply depends on what sites you visit and what you search for. Which makes me wonder – if Doris Lessing did use the internet even once, what exactly did she see to make her hate it so much? Oh if her search history could talk…
