The Smartest Generation

Common belief by older generations is that the current generation and generations to come are stupid, ignorant and lazy. I think there is a trend in effect right now that as it matures will nuture one of smartest generations in history.
Over the past 50 years people's main information source was the TV, before that it was radio, newspapers, books, spoken word. What all these share in common is that one source influenced the masses.
Along comes the internet. A source where the masses influence the masses. Unlike the previous mediums, this source interacts with it users. Maybe its true the average persons attention span has shrunk, but is that a bad thing? Whats the point spending hours searching through papers & books when you can get the same information in seconds via the information superhighway. One can interact with others, and when in doubt no longer has to stayed glued to the tube waiting to be spoon fed information. Its also the information arbitrator between the able and the not so able. Anyone with a link to the internet is on much nearer level playing field with someone with more extensive reasources more today then ever. I havent't quantified how much more productive the internet makes someone, but if I had to guess based on my own experiance I would say at least 3 fold.
To give an example of how disruptive the internet is, I continue to refer to google. They continue take ad revenue while the old men of the by gone days stand and scratch their heads, wondering how it makes that money. Its simple; google lets advertisers see the return on their ad dollars they are getting, while TV, radio and print doesn't. Advertising used to be alot of guesswork + trial and error, Google & overture (now owned by yahoo) turned it into a science.