Can Information on the internet be both reliable and accessible?

How has access to the plethora of freely accessible repositories of information on the Internet (like Wikipedia, Quora (!), YouTube) changed the average education level in the United States?

• I understand the digital divide greatly skews things. Generally speaking though, access to information for all walks of life has to have been increasing, right? Is there any evidence that, even in non-traditional educational settings that people are more knowledgable about the word? And therefore can make better decisions?

• Answer:

  If you are talking about formal education, then not that much.  I have not seen research which connects the use of any widely used software application to a gain in its users educational attainment (or even experimental studies which show an increase in cognitive ability).     If you are talking about informal education or "raw" knowledge, then it appears as if those with the wherewithal to use these applications are using them, and using them effectively.  However, those who do not possess the perquisite level of digital literacy, simply are not using Quora and Wikipedia to learn more about their world.  In this way, software applications can reproduce equalities online that are already in force offline.