Does the Internet make us smarter?

I came home this evening and the power in my building was out...again. Seems to go out a couple of times a week. At least this time it was because they were trying to be proactive and avoid future power outages.

Seems like every time the power goes out the one thing I find myself most frustrated by is the inability to use the Web to look up things I'm wondering about. Like, I wonder what the English lyrics to Bizet's Carmen are (while watching a movie rendition of it on TV), or I wonder when the Carp Fair starts (in order to mark my Google Calendar), or I wonder how a map of modern-day Europe compares to ice-age Europe (because I'm reading The Valley of Horses by Jean Auel).

Since I couldn't look up what I wanted to before the power came back on earlier this evening, my mind was wandering a little and as it often does at such times, I wondered how I ever got by without the Internet. Having to run to the library or dig up a dusty old Encyclopedia Brittannica to find stuff out just wasn't as cool, as fast, as timely or as satisfying as plugging in a few key words in Google and having the information within seconds.

And since the Internet now allows me to satisfy even my most idle curiosities (almost) as often as I want -- and I'm a pretty curious person -- I have to wonder if it's making me any smarter. If I was curious about something 20 years ago, I might never be able to satisfy that curiosity. I'd wonder about it and then it would just fade from my mind as the next thought took its place. Now that I can find things out any time I want, I figure I must be smarter because of it. Cool.

Mind you, I'm not saying I'm more intelligent because of the Internet. If the Internet made me more intelligent, I wouldn't spend so much time on it! Talk about a Catch 22!