Final DocumentThe Internet is becoming an extremely important tool for almost everyone. It is the newest and most progressive media that will surely be the “media” of the future. Yet debate persists over whether or not the Internet may benefit the human mind. The Web/Internet makes the human mind collectively smarter. For example, if a person searches for a topic online, the answer will be immediately available rather than going to the library to find several books and periodicals for information. As a person searches for data on the Internet, this search process helps develop areas of the human brain that are normally not used. The argument that the Internet could lead to the stupidity of the next generation, which provides all information with the tap of a keyboard. is unfounded. In fact, it has been proven in the past that whenever a new invention is created, the fear that the invention will have a negative effect on the generation it impacts is common. Although some of the negative effects are valid, the positive effects surprisingly outweigh the negative ones. It dates back to the Greeks, when Socrates pessimistically denounced writing, claiming that it would destroy the Greek practice of dialectic. “For your discovery will create oblivion in the minds of those who learn to use it; they will not exercise their memory, but trust in external, foreign marks, to those who learn to use them; they will not recall things of their own accord. Plato quotes it. Socrates' main concern was that people would write everything down instead of trying to remember it and he was right. While it's true that most people don't use their brains more these days, the upside is that...... middle of paper ...... me on the web; my phone, my laptop and my iPad and I spend about sixty percent of my time on a social media network or watching a show on Netflix and forty percent of my time reading newspapers and searching for articles and material for my homework or research and I am also looking for some educational articles. Now, I wouldn't say I'm a brilliant cookie, but I seem to learn from most of the material I'm exposed to via the web. Clay Shirky points out that “increased freedom to create means increased freedom to create disposable materials, as well as the freedom to engage in the experimentation that ultimately makes good new things possible. Just as Socrates had a problem with writing and just as silent reading was a problem for the Holy Church, when people embark on an invention and it becomes a part of life, there will always be others who will not agree and will denounce it..