Is the internet making us...dumber?

This is more of a philosophical posting - but does access to more information, online and across various mediums, lead to less knowledge?  Consider the election and contentious topics surrounding the candidates, their identities and their stances on various issues.  Days before the election, nearly 25% of Texas respondents believed that Obama was a Muslim.  Among Republicans, belief that humans are causing global warming has declined by 2% over the last 5 years, despite much factual evidence to the contrary.  What is going on?  Shouldn't we expect a progression with the infusion of available information?  In the most recent issue of Wired Magazine, Clive Thompson writes about this surprising counter trend.

History of Science professor at Stanford University, Robert Proctor, contends that when it comes to controversial subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed.  Ignorance increases.  He calls this trend "agnotology" or "the study of culturally constructed ignorance."  The ability to drown out the truth with online gorilla marketing tactics, has an impact on how some companies dessiminate information.  For example, a typical "agnotological" campaign is the funding of bogus studies by tobacco companies that link lung cancer to baldness and viruses - anything but their product - to manufacture confusion and ambiguity.

According to Proctor: "People always assume that if someone doesn't know something, it's because they haven't paid attention or figured it out.  But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth - or drowning it out - or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what's true and what's not."  

So despite the opportunities presented by the internet for consumers of information, it is inherently agnotological.  After all, from even a simple google search, people can easily find information online, whether true or false, that is tailored to their particular world view.  As newspapers decline, and fact checked traditional journalism is replaced by citizen bloggers and op-eds galore online, we should be mindful of this disinformation revolution, and make sure that user fact-checked sites like Wikipedia continue to flourish.