I read more that I ever did before, but then again I may have done as I got older anyway, without the internet. Actually, I think the 'net has enabled me to find more random facts, while generally narrowing the amount of news/information I take in. I don't know what is happening in the greater world, I know what is happening in the computer/tech industry. Things like the Haiti earthquake I didn't hear about until tech sites started reporting about it.
I think the 'net has been 'contaminated' too. Once upon a time it was a network of universities and military bases built on trust. Today nobody trusts anybody if they know what's good for them. We still have technologies from those "I trust you" days, things like SMTP which doesn't do authentication (you can add it on, but it's not a default or part of the standard) because once we trusted each other to use it properly...
We can't do anything about this, unfortunately
