With the internet, knowledge-hungry people can read more, watch more videos and actually increase the amount of knowledge they are absorbing. But with modern conveniences, people can get lazy. Many people have had their attention-spans shortened and sometimes only read headlines or the first few sentences of articles. Some won't read long posts on message boards and despite having all the knowledge at their fingertips, lack the discipline or drive to sift through it. Some people today pride themselves in not reading things and with people around who can summarize things, let other people do all their work for them. In the older days, there were fewer people who could give you the scoop on things, forcing your hand a bit to commit to sifting through things to develop your own opinions (not ones given to you by somebody else) and philosophy.
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