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Pew: More Information is Making Us Stupid

There is a new and demoralizing Pew Research report out today. It shows, in short, that despite the huge increases in the amount of ambient information out there -- the Internet, 24-hour cable news, etc. -- Americans know as little as ever (or less) about national and international affairs.

When asked to name the president of Russia, just 36% recalled Vladimir Putin. Only about three-in-ten (29%) could correctly identify former White House aide Scooter Libby; the survey was conducted during Libby's trial - but before his conviction - on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Public knowledge of news events also varies widely. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) knew that as part of his revised Iraq strategy, President Bush planned to increase U.S. military forces in the country. But only one-in-four Americans (24%) are aware that both houses of Congress passed legislation to increase the minimum wage and 34% knew that Congress voted to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.

Getting away from the depressing parts of the study, I found the following snippet interesting. There is little relationship between the news format and what people know:

Well-informed audiences come from cable (Daily Show/Colbert Report, O'Reilly Factor), the internet (especially major newspaper websites), broadcast TV (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) and radio (NPR, Rush Limbaugh's program). The less informed audiences also frequent a mix of formats: broadcast television (network morning news shows, local news), cable (Fox News Channel), and the internet (online blogs where people discuss news events).

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