The purpose of books can be described as “knowledge transfer,” and the Internet conveys an overwhelmingly broader array of options to the humankind. The books taught humans the best way to gain knowledge, they expand attention spans and positively affect imagination and abstract thinking. The Internet, on the other hand, gave people access to all the information humanity had ever generated, including books. While it does have an adverse side effect in the form of a reduced attention span, which stems from the sheer amount of data that people encounter daily, it does not make people less smart.
Constant access to all data allows students and teachers to remember less, but it opens up a possibility for the easier development of critical thinking and analyzing skills. The role of a teacher in this learning environment is to guide students through the information and teach them how to sort out meaningful knowledge from pointless or misleading data. Students must understand how to navigate through massive arrays of material and how to extract the vital parts of it. Society must develop a desire for the truth in incoming information, and being social nowadays equals sharing information that one perceives as crucial.