With the world wide web and its endless information available to us at any given time, some may believe that today’s younger generations should be more intelligent than those who did not have this technological library available to them. We can find facts in a matter of seconds, when years ago, it may have taken hours to go to the library, find the correct book, and read through to find what you were looking for. The reality is that this “easy access” information is not making us more intelligent, it is actually taking away from our leaning and reading abilities all together. It may be hard to believe, but many of those who grew up without the internet are experiencing the change first hand.
Many older people who always had a grand desire and passion for reading have found it hard to stay interested in a book for more than a few pages ever since they began using the internet. People of this same generation also claimed that even when they read articles online, their attention span is much shorter than it was before the world wide web existed. Even after just a few paragraphs, they find themselves thinking about things besides what they are currently attempting to read.
I can not entirely say that I understand how the older generations feel about this entire situation, but I feel the same way when it comes to attention span while being online. It is kind of scary to think of how this may affect the future generations with even more technology available at their fingertips. I hope that there is an incline in reading and educational use of the internet.