But, see, part of what bothers me about this is it's not about the internet; not directly, anyways. It's about... it's about how reading isn't necessary. It's about how a man with little vocabulary and no sense of grammar can stumble through life relatively well, generally absorbing what he's been told and communicating adequately enough the information he needs to communicate. But Leslie below makes a good point in that literacy allows people to gather their own information -- and, tangentially, a keystone in brainwashing is depriving the subject the means of gathering his own information; he knows only what you tell him and has no way of checking the facts (not unlike American media, I think...). but even more than that, psychologically speaking, the words you have to communicate with in great part determine what and how you can even think. Without words for a thing, without describing a notion, it's impossible to get a grasp on it. It's arguable that this is a flaw in modern man, that perhaps a more primitive creature could think in terms of sensation alone and not be constrained the way most of us are to think in terms of words (or numbers, for the mathematically inclined), but still...!

This subject gets me too fired up, I think...  ^_^;;