Forty percent of the U.S. populace believes that people and dinosaurs existed together, School of Communication professor Danna Walker said during an American Forum event Monday night.
The event's panelists debated whether or not the media are making the public dumber and harming relationships.
"The Internet is a terrific tool that reflects how people use it," said Joshua Hatch, a multimedia producer for USA Today. It is ambivalent, neither good nor bad, he said.
An agnostic tool does not exist, said Susan Jacoby, an independent scholar and the program director of the New York-based Center for Inquiry. The Internet is designed to distract, and audiences read differently online than in print, she said.
"When people say the Internet is making us smarter," Jacoby said. "That's a mistake. It's like people saying in the Renaissance when forks began to spread that forks were making us better eaters. No they weren't. They were making us faster eaters."
The Internet is designed for discovery and it's what a person makes of it, said Andy Carvin, the senior strategist for National Public Radio's Social Media Desk. YouTube can be used to broadcast videos of teenage boys doing stupid stunts or to generate support for political campaigns, he noted.
"Neither is right nor wrong," Carvin said. "They're just different aspects of human culture that are being captured."
The public must be cautious with the Internet since creators of online content have motives and advertisements are specifically designed for viewers, said SOC professor Kathryn Montgomery.
All of the panelists agreed that the Internet had some benefits, though they debated what the benefits were.
The Internet and non-profit organizations have encouraged youth to make their own videos about their experiences and post them online, Montgomery said.
"We've not had that before and I think that's a really, really positive thing," she said. "One of the problems is that the culture . the commercialized culture, doesn't necessarily encourage that kind of production, that kind of creation."
Carvin also discussed the Internet's transformation from a one-way medium to an avenue for blogging, online video and audio recordings and social networking.
"People are taking charge of their own content and production," he said. "They're no longer seeing themselves as mere passive consumers of information. They're active producers of it as well."
Social networking sites like Twitter were beneficial during the 2008 presidential debates, Carvin said. NPR asked viewers to check facts the candidates presented in the debates and to post any inconsistencies on Twitter. The effort was like having thousands of interns working for the company, he said.
Jacoby, on the other hand, expressed concern with social networking sites. While the sites can be useful, friendship is more than Twitter and Facebook - it is being there for someone when they need help, she said.
Carvin and Hatch both said sites like Facebook have helped them maintain social lives as busy parents.
"Instead of replacing real friendships, it's actually replacing non-friendships," Hatch said. "In other words, I probably keep up with people online, it's not that I keep up with them online but I would do a better job offline. It's actually that I would do a worse job offline. I wouldn't keep up with them at all."
Carvin said that through the Internet, he has been able to keep in touch with his friends.
"People aren't addicted to technology," he said. "They're addicted to their friends."
You can reach this staff writer at landerson@theeagleonline.com.
