Obviously no "people" are smart or stupid or anything else. You can only generalize like this if you don't know many of them, and so such generalizations are always a mark of ignorance, never of true knowledge. This is not only true for human users, it seems also true for the current state of the net.
It should always be remembered that the internet doesn't encompass the entire world, far from it, it is still a playground for a very limited elite, with certain views and perceptions (just recall for example how many people around the world don't even have a bank account, they are many, but are seldom heard on the net).
I've googled certain cultural terms from different societies, and at times couldn't find anything or could only find extremely limited information, because these themes were outside the scope of the usual demographics of internet users.
This of course is rapidly changing, with net use going the way of mobile phone use. And I guess a general adoption of the net will also mean English will lose its hegemonic place.
It should always be remembered that the internet doesn't encompass the entire world, far from it, it is still a playground for a very limited elite, with certain views and perceptions (just recall for example how many people around the world don't even have a bank account, they are many, but are seldom heard on the net). I've googled certain cultural terms from different societies, and at times couldn't find anything or could only find extremely limited information, because these themes were outside the scope of the usual demographics of internet users.
This of course is rapidly changing, with net use going the way of mobile phone use. And I guess a general adoption of the net will also mean English will lose its hegemonic place.