I agree. Our endeavor for technological and cultural progressiveness, in which it may be considered abnormal to dwell on anything for more than a little while, probably leaves too little time to actually appreciate the finer details of everything we have. Perhaps it wasn’t so before, when people were more likely to pause for thought instead of demanding continuous extrinsic stimulation, aware of the impermanence of life and its diversions.

How this relates to how ‘smart’ this generation is to previous generations is that there is not much difference in our cognitive abilities - however much is set aside as latent, which may not have been the case in the golden ages of philosophy, arts and literature in which the prowess of the mind was further explored. Technology may be actually a retardation of our mental abilities as we ‘outsource’ a great deal of our thinking to computer-generated output.

And while communication has contributed ‘collective intelligence’ across the globe with the internet and other media, I would still discount this as a modern variation of an age-old practice, albeit less selective than lecture halls and schools of thought, further limiting due to strong cultural influences from western ideals and an unapologetic ‘bandwagon of uncertainty’.

Not to say that I am not extremely thankful for the information so readily available that, like bingeing on vast quantities of somewhat-nourishing-mostly-junk-food, can even enlarge my rear.

Your definition of knowledge is quite different of what I referred to in my argument. You are talking about facts, if you put the internet as the upgrading tool of human overall intelligence. Facts are used more like a competitive measure (IQ), in which losers are common people and dumbasses.

This is not what intelligence stands for - an ability, Quality, not Quantity.

Just like your second paragraph.

So, with these assumption built, the internet is more of a manifestation of the world's abundance within the domain of the mind.

So we have more, but all we have is meaningless.

And we know more, but all we know is useless.

And vice versa.

It is in the conversation, the way information flows through us, shared and dealt with. Sadly, most of us are trapped in the commercial and financial, in which things and ideas are simplified in matters of healthy\not, cheap\expensive, cool\not.

Into these binaries, one's cognitive does not require a deeper investigation, each binary is just a point in the map of one's life. And if one activates the overrated style of living, he doesn't really have the time to focus on a point, because one is in a constant process of creating a point, figuring out how cool healthy and moraly it is, and sharing, trading points constantly.

One cannot keep up with creation. Not with his favorite music genre, nor with his friends' thoughts.

Imagine a production line. Naturally, you are standing in the position of where the objects on the rail are entering, through some kind of a screen. Your job is to identify, you have some kind of tool that labels the objects.

Now imagine the objects start flooding your station, they enter in masses and you must label them as quickly as possible, before the next bunch comes demanding in.

People aren't dumber, they just don't let themselves let out a deeper interest, a longer thought. They won't play with thoughts or ask for an evidence of their will power or existence, because there is too much to life, and all these thoughts smell of death.

Taylor Mali, referring to the 'Like' and 'You know', described conversation best.

"Declarative sentences, so called because they're used to, you know, declare things to be true, OK?, as opposed to other things that are, like, totally, you know, not, they've been infected by this tragically cool and totally hip interrogative tone, as if I'm saying - don't think I'm a nerd just because I've noticed this, OK?, I have not personally invested in my own opinions, I'm just, like, inviting to join me on the bandwagon of my own uncertainty."