Ideas for modern living: digital scepticism

"The internet is making us stupid." This accusation has been heard on many lips. Yet the real problem may be that people are too clever. We are extraordinarily good at conjuring stories, ideas, even personalities from very little. Show someone a few dozen pixels and they'll see a human face; a few hundred words and a couple of images, and they have a life story. With digital (rather than physical) contact, invention and inference matter. I change my Facebook status from "married" to "single" and a dozen shocked messages arrive; I tweet that I'm at a party and start swapping messages with friends, despite the fact I'm at home alone. You may not think everything I'm saying is true – but you don't realise how far from the truth I've strayed. And my messages leave a permanent, falsified record. We're far from helpless, of course. A crucial facet of human cleverness is sensitivity to social tone. We have fine ears for the bogus: the half-truths of a press release; the MP whose media presence is fabricated. Digital media fosters a particular illusion: that we are getting a "live", unvarnished insight. Reading all of the texts in our lives with a sceptical eye has rarely been more important. Tom Chatfield is author of Fun Inc (Virgin Books). He is speaking at the School of Life on 18 October. Visit theschooloflife.com/events