It’s funny to think that as little as 15 years ago, people still bought personal encyclopedias and dictionaries for their home. Guys used to go door to door and sell these things and people would buy them, because otherwise you’d have to go to the local library anytime you had a question about some random issue you’re interested in. For many people under 20 years old, they can’t remember a time without the Internet. Even for the under 30 crowd, it’s a hazy memory.
In general it would seem that this easy access to information should make the populace smarter, and in some ways it definitely has. In others, the overload of pop culture media has kept some from ever even thinking about issues beyond what the latest movie star is wearing on the red carpet. Of course, there’s an argument that they wouldn’t be the ones at the library anyway, so the smarter get smarter, and the dumb stay dumb.