I don't know how much of it can be trusted for factual accuracy (the number of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and unproofed sentences leads me to question the fact checking) but the way each subject of interest is linked to another, means I find myself aimlessly wandering between articles, picking at anything of interest. I am very much a vulture of useless information.
In an interesting addendum to this style of information consumption, I cannot remember any specific information within any article I have ever read. The articles are condensed into keywords, for reference at a later date. If I were to be asked about Asian tennis players, for example, I know only one name. Li Na is a player of note, winning a grand slam (the first by an Asian) and seeding in the top ten. Prior to reading this article, I wouldn't have a clue why I know that name.
This is interesting because it's often been suggested that the way people are remembering things is changing. Before books, people remembered, and embellished, stories passed through generations by speech. This required a direct remembering of the story. Remember as much as possible, make up the rest.
When books were invented, it became impossible to blag your way out of a mis-telling - the proof was there for all to see. It then became the aim of learned men to memorise quotes. This is why the ludicrous act of memorising lines of poems became the de facto standard of intelligence interpretation. If knew all the lines of shakespeare, you were a certifiable (lunatic) genius.
Now, with information readily available, people needn't remember everything. Give me thirty seconds and I'll have the wikipedia page ready. There is no room for human error when using this model (besides the error of the article itself) because it's right there, at a fingertip.
What I've seen criticised in several articles relating to retention of language specifically, is the current model requires very little effort from the user - you don't need to know who doodled the Mona Lisa, or who composed the Planets, it's on our phones and computers. The argument extends to the inevitable conclusion, of people lacking the ability to remember anything. The fact that people can't spell is cited as a prime example. Spell checking software has been around for a decade now, and people who write on the internet are the first demographic to be exposed to this additional feature. In essence; that face you pull when someone writes on a website 'lok at tht, its amasing,' is down to a simple time-saving device. Which is easier, spending a lifetime learning how to spell, or thirty seconds figuring out how to use a spell checker.
I think it's obvious that there are more factors involved than one aspect of a program, but it's ultimately the desire for everything to be easier (which spell checking feeds into) that has created the situation we're in now. That and people don't care.
To be honest I think it's more about not caring. The internet has allowed everyone to see, behind a veil of anonymity, the bulbous beer bellies and swaying man boobs of intellectuality that we attempt to hide in other forms of media. The internet allows it all to 'hang out there,' because there are no consequences.
On a side-note, I may not be able to quote any lines from Shakespeare (or any book, poem, play or article I've ever read) or remember the plot to half of them, but I'll be damned if I'm going to sacrifice being able to find stuff like this in favour of a well-rounded memory.
P.S You know that tennis playing chinese chick? While looking at her wiki, I found out this:
'However with her disapointing results Li Na sacked her husband as coach and hired the Dane Michael Mortensen.'
Damn. That's cold.
I wonder how she broke the news? I also wonder if she got any Christmas presents?
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