Internet dumbs us down: Nobel prize winner (1 Viewer)

chicky_pie

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New Nobel laureate Doris Lessing has used her acceptance speech to rail against the internet, saying it has "seduced a whole generation into its inanities" and created a world where people know nothing.

Lessing, 88, who won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, lamented the apparent discrepancy in the hunger for books between developing countries like Zimbabwe and the rest of the world.

In August, Elton John, another creative type for whom the internet has opened up a sea of fresh competition, lambasted the web for stifling creativity, even calling for it to be shut down.

"We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers," she said in the speech read out by Lessing's British publisher as she was too ill to travel to Sweden for the Nobel festivities.

She compared her visits to resource-deprived schools in Zimbabwe, where students begged her for books and taught themselves to read using labels on jam jars, to a trip to another school in North London where teachers complained that many students never read books at all and the library was only half used.

Lessing said no one had thought to ask how our lives would be changed by the internet, "which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc".

Similarly, author Andrew Keen argued in his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, that the internet was killing culture and assaulting economics.

"[Anyone] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels," Keen wrote in the book.

But Lessing, who becomes the oldest person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, barely acknowledges the internet's positive side, short of calling it an "amazing invention".

She said little about the opportunity for internet users to freely browse reams of information they may otherwise not have the time or know-how to seek out. She also ignored the fact that blogging has given a voice to millions who would otherwise be writing little or nothing at all.

"In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, the tradition," she said.

As people increasingly obtained their information from the internet, a "treasure-house of literature", going back to ancient times, was being ignored, said Lessing.

Lessing, who grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), also used the lecture, titled "On not winning the Nobel Prize" to condemn President Robert Mugabe's "reign of terror" and its effects on literature and budding writers in the country. Her work often draws on her experiences in Africa.

Lessing was described by the Swedish Academy, which has awarded the Nobel Prize since 1901, as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."


http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/net-dumbs-us-down-nobel-prize-winner/2007/12/10/1197135340009.html



and Kevin Rudd wants us to all have a computer for every students in Australia :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 

Captain Gh3y

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"[Anyone] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels," Keen wrote in the book.
a dying breed lamenting their loss of power and exclusivity

internet ftw :D
 

sam04u

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I disagree.

If you put an idiot infront of a computer, they're not going to miraculously be transformed into geniuses. I can only speak for myself, but the internet has not dumbed me down.

It depends how you use the internet really. If you're the type of person who follows a cycle of going to websites like Myspace, Bebo and Youtube, you're not going to be using the internet productively, and you're probably going to be contributing less to the economy.

But even in that scenario you're not going to get anyone being dumbed down.
 

ari89

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sam04u said:
I disagree.

If you put an idiot infront of a computer, they're not going to miraculously be transformed into geniuses. I can only speak for myself, but the internet has not dumbed me down.

It depends how you use the internet really. If you're the type of person who follows a cycle of going to websites like Myspace, Bebo and Youtube, you're not going to be using the internet productively, and you're probably going to be contributing less to the economy.

But even in that scenario you're not going to get anyone being dumbed down.
I dunno....every time I see someone post the most outrageous chain bulletin I feel as if by simply watching I get a bit dumber. And the sites (myspace etc) have so many ads I'm sure they'd be contributing more to the economy than an unemployed internet 'academic'.

Edit: The internet academic would probably also end up spending money on the net on porn as they have no social life - whether it be real or virtual
 
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AkaiHanabi

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The internet just shows how many people there really are that are stupid. and there are a lot.
 

ibewatto

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wat the fuck is the internet??

if i break my neck like this *breaks* and smoke some dope like this *smokes* i can almost see that the internet encourages poor spelling and grammer...

but even at that angle and that height of intoxication a brain dead seagull could tell you the internet not only allows for a faster access to once imposible to obtain information but also enlightens MOST of its users in some sense.
 

Enteebee

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reading that news article made me angry, just has it all so wrong, so incredibly fucking wrong on all accounts...
 

sam04u

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They can take.. I don't give a fuck what they take. But if they come for my internet, they better bring guns.

Internet = Tool against controlled media.

Seriously though (note correct spelling) the internet is the greatest gift to mankind. I'm lieing down horizontally, with a cool glass of my favourite drink, and I'm able to communicate to all you fine people this message which I have. It will not be regulated, contrived, controlled or corrupted in any way by groups of people with an agenda.

Sadly, wikipedia is an exception to this rule. Wikipedia is only one of a very few examples of the internet being controlled by groups of people with agendas. (Youtube has a few propoganda videos too.) But the point is it's balanced, and so people can form opinions.

tl;dr
Internet = srs bizness.
 

^CoSMic DoRiS^^

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i agree that there's a lot of really stupid shit floating around on the net, but there's a lot of very intelligent and creative stuff too. anyone with half a brain can tell the excrement from the usable, informative, accurate content that's not a complete insult to intelligence. anyone who can't is beyond help in the first place.
in short, i love the internet. keep it coming.
 

sam04u

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brogan77 said:
I am the Internet.
No, sir you're a little too pure to truly be the internet.

I am the very epitome of the internet. For every loli being confronted by an aggressive pedophile, I'm there. For every porn site being brute-forced and being posted on to forums, I'm there. For every troll, being trolled by thinking he trolled somebody, I'm there. For every post that's being made in racial or radical forums, I'm there. For every manga being scanlated, for every MMO being reverse packeted, for ever Anime being mass reproduced with subs, for every game, every update and every post, I'm there.

Sorry brogan77, but I am the internet.
 

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