Does the Internet Make You Dumber?

I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal (June 5, 2010) titled “Does the Internet Make You Dumber? According to research, there have been significant neurological changes in the ways the brain processes information after using the Internet. It was hypothesized that the hyperlinked environment keeps one in a constant state of mental stimulation, and does not allow for focus or deep attention, which in turn encourages shallow thinking.

I was fascinated by the article because I’ve noticed that my retention of the material I’ve read on the web, like Wikipedia articles where I follow internal links, is practically nil. Of course there could be many other reasons for this, including a lack of a knowledge base which does not allow for new material to relate.

On many web pages, information, in an severe act of reductionism, is stripped of its details and left with only the highlights presented. Is this leading to a bullet-point mentality? I'm not sure--I've been working on a command line interface for so long the past three days its hard to tell.