With the internet’s wealth of information at our fingertips, Jenny Williams asks if Wikipedia has killed the concept of general knowledge?

Wikipedia: books, general knowledge and effort not required. Image courtesy of Carla Smith via Flickr.

 ‘Why isn’t called e-pedia?’ shouts my frustrated colleague while pounding at the computer keyboard and trawling through Wikipedia in search for a crucial fact: Elton John’s real name. All it takes is slight misapprehension of fact during office banter and everyone is away, racing to find the fact first and, usually, heading straight for Wikipedia.

I’m quite certain it’s not just my office with a penchant for general knowledge and that this happens in offices – and beyond – nationwide (general knowledge hunting that is, not searching for Elton John’s real name, which is Reginald Kenneth Dwight, FYI).

Having all this information literally at our fingertips is liberating, fantastic and great for advancing your social status among office peers. But has the internet made our brains lazy and caused a decline in general knowledge?

The possibility that the internet is dumbing us all down isn’t a new idea. Google has been accused of making us all a little dumber, as this blog suggests.

A telling off from Plato.

We can also copy and paste like never before. While some of my school homework was certainly enhanced by the reliable ‘Ctrl C + Crtl V’ combination, others have taken it a step further, like the editor of Wired magazine who admitted to copying from Wikipedia into his book – unfortunately titled – ‘Free’, in June this year.

While we no longer have to work as hard to learn by sifting through hefty encyclopaedias from the family book shelf, this hasn’t necessarily made us lazy or damaged our ability to learn via this new platform.

Wikipedia has millions of articles written by its registered – and anonymous – users. Experts, academics and even average Joe Bloggs can edit entries and this keeps the flow of information alive. While those editions of encyclopaedias are getting dusty on the shelf, entries on Wikipedia are being continually revised and refreshed, providing the most up-to-date reflection upon all the facets of our society.

Courtesy of quartermene via Flickr.

 Wikipedia isn’t called e-pedia is precisely because it’s a Wiki. A Wiki is a tool whereby users write the entries; they edit and contribute to create content. This means someone could write a whole lot of rubbish. However, platforms like Wikipedia do have creditability in their ability to be self-regulatory.

More so, the ability to learn new things is easier than ever before with so many other online resources and institutions – such as the Open University. Schools are even beginning to incorporate digital technology into the curriculum. As Victor Keegan recently wrote in The Guardian, “It is possible we are not far away from a revolution in which formal education will give way more and more to the attractions of internet learning.” While we may not have the need to commit general knowledge to memory (except when taking part in the occasional pub quiz), the internet hasn’t curbed our learning or dumbed us down; it’s increasing our potential. All we need to do is motivate ourselves to log on, get involved and adapt.

While contemplating all the learning to be had, here are a few useless pieces of general knowledge I stumbled across on the World Wide Web:

• In Slavic vampire folklore, vampires could take the form of butterflies.
• Pierre the penguin is the first bird to don a custom-made wetsuit (to combat bald spots).
• Captain Philip Beaver once read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica during one of his cruises – if only he’d had the internet, he could’ve saved himself the time…

Published in Running in Heels, 28th September 2009.