Did I get dumber or did the internet get sharper, or both?

5 years ago I trusted every headline from my local paper, even the ones about celebrity diets. Now after seeing the same story framed 3 different ways on Reddit, I check the publish date, the source URL, and the actual article body first. Last week a viral post said 'Scientists Prove Coffee Kills You' but it was about a 2017 study on mice given 20 cups a day. I flip the headline into a question and ask who benefits from me clicking: did my old habit make me lazy or was I just more trusting?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilya761mo ago

The part about flipping the headline into a question and asking who benefits from me clicking really hit home. I used to be the same way, I would just skim the first few lines and move on like it was gospel. Now I catch myself doing the full detective routine on almost everything, checking the byline, the date, even the comments to see if someone already called out the clickbait. I remember this one time a post about "miracle weight loss fruit" got shared around and it was just a repackaged press release from a supplement company, no real study at all. My old self would have bought into it completely, but now I feel like I am constantly looking for the angle behind the story. Maybe it is not that we got dumber, maybe the internet just forced us to grow a thicker skin for nonsense.

davis.noah1mo ago

My buddy fell for that same trick with a fake celebrity diet and lost $40 on some tea.