Internet isn’t making us smarter
Not long ago, humankind seemed destined to grow more informed over time.
After all, we’ve had millennia to accumulate scientific findings, brilliant literature and new technologies. Then something miraculous happened: The internet made it easy to disseminate and democratize all that wisdom. With reliable broadband and ubiquitous smartphones, the entire sum of human knowledge is now at our fingertips 24/7.
Yet here we are in 2024, and the internet seems to have made many of us so much dumber. Or at least, much more susceptible to wildly false information.
For example:
• Young women have been dumping their birth control because viral influencer videos claim ye olde “rhythm method” is safer.
• The tragic collapse of a Baltimore bridge, after a ship lost power, launched a zillion viral conspiracy theories blaming diversity education, capitalism, immigrants and (inevitably) the Jews.
• The Islamic State practically had to beg for credit for its slaughter of civilians at a Russian concert hall because too many conspiracy theorists have blamed other culprits. (“I had never considered before that we might solve terrorism by becoming so collectively stupid that no one can agree who perpetrated the attack,” observed tech policy researcher Eli Dourado. “No point in terrorizing if you don’t get the credit!”)
These are examples reported in just the past week. The broader array of viral conspiracy theories weaves an even richer tapestry, covering both the ghoulish (9/11 truthers, the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre) and the mundane (the price of a hamburger or the shape of the Earth).
So how is it that the internet has made so many of us less informed?
It’s easy to understand how mistruths can spread. Lies can be optimized for virality. The truth cannot because it’s constrained by reality, which is sometimes boring. So it’s no surprise that lies can do better online; they can be designed to appeal to their audiences’ biases and desires. The underlying principle is not new. As the saying goes, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots.
The internet also makes it easier to find communities that can reinforce and embellish any given conspiracy theory, no matter how improbable. “Old wives’ tales” and hoaxes are not new, of course, but it’s hard to imagine Qanon lore proliferating as widely and quickly and with such elaborate detail in a pre-internet era. Those who wish to spread misinformation — perhaps for political or financial gain — can now efficiently share their message at scale.
The puzzle is why consumers haven’t grown savvier about spotting misinformation. During the 2016 election cycle, lots of Americans proved easily manipulable by Russian trolls and disinformation agents on Facebook. But those Facebook victims were disproportionately older users who hadn’t grown up in the digital era and presumably had less practice scrutinizing the credibility of online sources.
As new generations arose who were digital natives, I (naively) assumed Americans would become better at differentiating between a viral social media anecdote and a vetted news story or credible statistical source. Somehow, the opposite has happened. Gen Zers appear to struggle with news literacy as much boomers, at least based on the large share of young people who trust and reshare random Tiktok influencers for hard news. (And if Americans are this lousy at navigating our sources now, what hope is there as artificial intelligence and deepfakes become more convincing?)
In the United States, at least, one possible explanation for this problem is our long-documented paranoid style of politics. Americans’ tendency toward anti-establishment, anti-authority suspicions has created a profitable media business model: Claiming that the “mainstream” media is lazy or corrupt and that your own brave upstart news organization is the one honorable truth teller . ...
And to be clear: We in traditional media have certainly done things to warrant losing some public trust. We sometimes get things wrong, including on public health and foreign wars — perhaps making viral conspiracy theories about birth control and terrorist attacks more believable.
Now, I’d argue traditional news organizations are more diligent in trying to get things right and more likely to correct their mistakes than is the case for your average one-man-band Instagram influencer. But at some level, it doesn’t matter. Too many media companies have already validated the “one true prophet” marketing model. And too many news consumers, of every age, are committed to the bit . ...