When the internet started reinforcing and supercharging the microcomputer revolution, the inventors of this new system probably envisioned a world where people could share information very quickly and learn from each other more efficiently. This vision certainly happened but for most of the users of the internet, this was not the priority and probably never will be. The average user of the internet wants to experience what they wanted to experience outside of the internet on the internet, and they altered and populated it in ways that achieved this goal.
The vision of a utopian future where people become intelligent and sophisticated through the internet never happened. How the internet really affected the intelligence and education level of most people is difficult to understand. Other factors that evolved over time as the internet became more accessible and more widely used make it difficult to isolate its effects. However, there is sparse evidence that people have become more sophisticated because now they have access to this information superhighway as it was once called. A significant majority of the data on the internet is not related to information at all. To the surprise of many, most of it is pornographic media. Then most of the rest of the data is other kinds of media. Granted, media files are much larger than text files and some of the skewed nature of these statistics is understandable. Nevertheless, people mostly use the internet for social interactions, shopping, and other practical daily tasks like banking and bill payments.
This, certainly, does not look like an information superhighway but more like a convenient utility. Not that there is anything wrong with this. This part of the internet is a massive improvement in the lives of the people and improved productivity globally in many ways. I am simply lamenting the missed opportunity to educate the greater masses.
I am sure some people will remind me that many do use the internet for faster and more efficient access to information and this is true. However, this access remained an option and a sparsely utilized one at that. While the people who wanted to access information achieved this easier and became smarter, the rest of the folks avoided this aspect of it and never really gained anything intellectual out of the internet. This phenomenon widened the intelligence gap that already existed amongst the people.
Now, we are faced with another major innovation. It is called Artificial Intelligence. We are yet to see the extent of its effects in our lives. Already, it achieved so much that we know the effects will be profound, but we do not yet know whether these effects will be mostly positive or negative. I have to admit. I have a bad feeling about AI, and it is not related to the job security issue or the AI getting out of control and taking over the world. I feel AI will continue to widen the intelligence gap between the people who are willing to learn and better themselves and the rest of the folks who avoid learning at all costs. Terrifyingly, AI might also damage the image of the people who are educated. It gives uneducated people the impression that they know enough, while in reality they certainly do not. This was one of the side effects of the internet and social media. AI appears to be set to amplify this even further. If this happens, we will wake up to a world where information or intelligence mean little or nothing. Our fate will be in the hands of luck as uneducated people will always lack the vision to make the right decision for themselves and for the rest of humanity. That is if they are still making the decisions.