Does the Internet Make Us Smarter People?

DolceTracker| Just last evening we addressed the question Does the Internet Make You Smarter? in today’s WSJ essay by Clay Shirky.  Our answer: yes, but with self-discipline and focus. 

In Design Trends Bedrock : Sauvage, Goddess Beauty, our point is that the new goddess is as much Athena as Aphrodite. Coincidentally via artist Katinka Matson, we ended up at Edge and this year’s question to 172 essayists: “How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?” 

Matson’s flower photograph says a great deal about the opening of a new global language and philosophical force that transcends the “noise” and mediocrity of the Internet. We share among ourselves and with readers access to creative thinking on a global scale.

Edge.org is just one example of powerhouse learning that we wouldn’t know, without the Internet. Think of Ted.com as a tremendous Internet resource.

Author Clay Shirky of the WSJ Does the Internet Make You Smarter? has a new book “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age” to be published in a few days.