We even had a slogan for it: "computers are bicycles for the mind": https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-...
I was so naive...
The problem is something else. The problem is that the internet is more than one thing. It is a couch for the lazy, a distraction for the procrastinator, a massive entertainment delivery device; and most of the monetary value of the internet doesn't come from it being a bicycle for the mind, but for the other things.
Not everyone chooses to ride on the bicycle. Instead of, say, reading Wikipedia, they read Infowars. The world would be a much better place if a lot of people spent their time reading Wikipedia (with all of its faults) instead of scrolling Twitter, Facebook, and slanted news sites like Breitbart, CNN, Fox, etc. etc. etc.
Computers are information. Giving people access to information does not magically make them moral, or curious, or thoughtful. It just amplifies what they were already trying to do.
1. creates a giant, complex vector for the transfer and recombination of ideas, and attitudes: it's an influence and innovation engine 2. facilitates certain kinds of collective action and organizing, from traditional interest groups, to flash mobs, and getting ratioed. 3. facilitates certain kinds of illicit or illegal behaviors, activities, etc while making other kinds much harder. Anonymity is difficult, widespread surveillance is the norm; but you can hold entire pieces of infrastructure hostage, like oil pipelines, from your couch. 4. creates a new set of dynamics that we are only coming to recognize. for example, social media platforms like Facebook make it like we've all become more densely packed together, and we've not really developed a set of norms to accommodate getting along at that level of density.
As a 90's kid who grew up online, this was my thought at the time as well. Turns out computers were more like an op-amp for the existing inadequacies of human nature, rather than a bicycle for the mind.
Most published research is false even if it's peer-reviewed, and it may be better to leave it to people who read it full time and understand it's an ongoing conversation.
Not that the liberal "trust the experts" worked, since Fauci's policy was to only say things that made him sound trustworthy, whether or not they were true. (and he admits this)
Also, I'm not sure you can say that "Most published research is false". There are many degrees between true and false. In the physical sciences, with which I'm familiar, the papers are demonstrably 'mostly true'. For example, as a bi-product of an experiment last week we observed an Ekman spiral (first published in 1905 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekman_spiral).
I agree it depends on the field. I was thinking of medicine, where there's a well known paper about this[1] that's led to some improvements like pre-registered experiments, although there's some newer ones that show ongoing problems in social sciences[2].
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo... (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False)
[2] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/21/eabd1705 (Nonreplicable publications are cited more than replicable ones)
I admit that I too was once a believer...