However, broad erudition and encyclopedic knowledge are the result of reading encyclopedias, not their cause

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The latest leap in the change of cognitive abilities related to the change in the technology of working with sign systems occurred with the advent of electronic data transmission systems. It would be more correct to say that we are witnessing it right now, since the apotheosis of this technology is the Internet.
However, if you overcome the initial shock and assess the situation more carefully, it turns out that everything is not so sad. Firstly, thanks to the phenomenon of social networks, the preconditions for the dj email database list development of the art of public debate have arisen, which has lost its relevance among the masses. The long-forgotten scholastic art of debate and argumentation gives huge advantages to those who want to achieve popularity in social networks. This gives hope that rational thinking will be restored, but only as a result of mastering new skills. Secondly, the need for broad erudition has really decreased due to the emergence of the phenomenon of Wikipedia and other online encyclopedias.


Already now, in the column "interests" of people in social networks, you can read "reading Wikipedia". The ability to read reference literature at any free time will inevitably create a fairly wide layer of widely erudite people. The question of the systematicity of their knowledge is, of course, very controversial, so we will leave it behind the scenes.

In other words, the Internet is a thing that can make smart people even smarter and dumb people even dumber.
The task of education, without a doubt, is to help the latter compensate for the negative impact of network technologies on their own minds.