Many concerns exist within both popular discourse and the academic literature as to the effects of the Internet on education. One hypothesis is that the facility of acquiring information on the Internet represents a certain dumbing-down of culture, and thus the Internet is viewed as making students “stupid” and “lazy.” Certainly, the speed with which the Internet can provide information makes gaining information easier than it was in the past. However, this does not correlate to how students and the education system use this information. The following essay will argue against the claim that the Interment is detrimental to the education of students, by emphasizing how the Internet provides students with more information and possibilities for knowledge than ever before – this creates the potential for a radically educated generation of students. The main obstacle to be overcome is learning how to properly employ the wealth of information that the Internet provides.

The immediate advantage of the Internet is that it gives the student access to vast quantities of information. In the past, access to this information was more difficult, insofar as information was essentially localized: the acquisition of relevant materials was limited by place, for example, the holdings of the local library or bookstore. As Gunderman et al. (2001) note “the value of IT lies in its ability to store, analyze, and communicate large amounts of information at very high rates of speed…learners can access instruction from virtually any site that has a computer and an Internet connection and can do so at any time.” (p. 1) Accordingly, Internet technology can be understood as radicalizing the potential for students within education, as there are essentially no impasses to the acquisition of materials, which serve as the basis for their studies. This is especially relevant for students in the Third World, who have limited access to materials; the Internet may alleviate this problem. According to Adam et al., (1997), “computers can also level the playing field internationally, allowing third-world countries the same access to the Internet as technologically advanced countries.” (p. 3) The accusations that the Internet makes students lazy can be viewed as a result of examining the relationship of Internet and education from a purely American or Western perspective: the concern in the Third World is how to provide education despite economic constraints, constraints which the Internet helps alleviate. The Internet thus can be understood as a topological revolution in education, insofar as information is no longer localized, but the space for education is expanded.

In this regard, it is relevant to suggest that the nature of the Internet itself may be understood as a knowledge and information based revolution. As Ives and Jarvenpaa (1996) write, “the knowledge revolution, though propelled by the twin engines of computer technology and communication technology, is a revolution of minds and ideas rather than of mass and energy.” From this perspective, the technological advances that made the Internet possible are nevertheless the product of minds and ideas, and moreover, perpetuate the importance of minds and ideas. The Internet as an information and communication tool thus lucidly correlates to the precise demands of the education experience: the particular technology of IT provides a means with which to carry out educational goals. In other words, if education is viewed as the transmission of knowledge from the instructor to the student, the Internet serves this same function, to the extent that it is also a means with which to transmit knowledge. Accordingly, educational goals can be more easily realized with an effective technological tool that corresponds to the essence of education as the transmission of knowledge. Moreover, the fact that such tools can be improved in terms of “both Web design and the environment in which searching is performed” (Fidel et al., 1996, p. 36) suggests that the Internet can be made even more effective. The realization of such goals contradicts the negative connotations of laziness that is associated with technology.

From another perspective, the Internet can be viewed as a means to satisfy the increasing importance of education in society. Brown and Adler (2008) observe that there is a “problem of the growing global demand for education” (p. 2), as more of the world’s population attends schools and post-secondary education. This demand itself indicates a desire for knowledge that is being realized on a global scale. The Internet becomes a means with which to actualize this desire, as opposed to ignoring it. The desire for knowledge itself can be viewed as something that is not lazy: that the Internet helps make this desire more realizable in practice does not indicate a growing lethargy on the part of the populace, but rather how communication technologies can satisfy the demands of the public. At the same time, it is important to stress that from the opposite perspective, the demands of more advanced technology also requires students to become more educated, as Lee (2001) notes, “education will become even more vital as technology becomes more skill-complementary.” (p. 148) Education and technology enjoy in this technological age a certain relation of symbiosis: it is thus, in contemporary times, disastrous to attempt to view education as separate from technology. The accusations that technology makes students lazy overlooks the fact that technology has permeated our world and is inseparable from all segments of society, including education. Arguments against technology and education are thus, in the contemporary context, arguments against society itself.

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