Are we lowering our educational expectations ?

After reading some of the questions on here, I seem to be of the impression that the internet whilst giving us all access to a vast amount of knowledge, we seem to becoming less reliant on our own skills..example is some of the questions asked on here, many are very basic and most people should know the answer before asking. Also the spelling is literally abysmal..is this also an effect of the wonders of modern technology..ie Intenet, Word Processing (with spellchecker)...SMS messages that seem to shorten the language cutting out most of the vowels...the direction we are going seems to suggest that we are dumbing down....whats your thoughts ?