In this article, Jamie examines the impact of the Internet on schools and learning since 1995, comparing its current results with predictions made when it first arrived some 26 years ago. At that time he predicted that the Internet might spawn "a generation of free range students — young people capable of navigating through a complex, often disorganized information landscape while making up their own minds about the important issues of their lives and their times."

In actuality, he now suggests, the Internet has had mixed results when it comes to learning. In some respects it has made us all richer but in other respects decidedly impoverished.