My parents were Eastern European immigrants whose roots were rural and poor. My mother was telling me a story about when she was a child, a villager took a trek to the city and came back with windows. He installed them on his house. The other villagers thought it was evil and from the devil, and burned his house to the ground.
Humans are creatures of habit and resistant to change, especially as you get older. Something innovative and new is often pointed to as the cause of each generation's faults. Yes, there is trash on the internet, but there is trash on TV. There is trash in printed media. There is trash coming out of your neighbor's mouth.
For me, the Internet has made my life so much better:
1) Being in IT, I can download device drivers in a snap instead of looking through mounds of CDs to try to find the right one.
2) Forgot how to use something? Find a user manual online in minutes.
3) I can pay bills in 10 minutes a month.
4) I can buy or sell stocks in seconds, for dirt cheap commission, while I work.
5) I can communicate and share ideas with people around the world through sites like this.
6) Forgot the name of an actor in a movie? Find the answer in seconds.
7) When taking a road trip, I can easily plan the most cost efficient and scenic routes. When making a hotel arrangement, I can get on "Street view" to check out the surrounding area.
8) When I'm bored, I can find area events in a snap.
9) A person can take online courses and educate themselves when they don't have the funds or transportation to commute to a regular college.
I could go on and on of course. The bottom line is people are stupid because they are lazy and allowed themselves to be stupid. There is unlimited wealth of information and capability available, but still only so many hours in a day. We just have to learn to budget our time for things that matter.