I actually just saw this in Monday's IHT and only got through about half of it before I got annoyed and moved on to news about Libya. There are a few issues that I have with it. Firstly, his statement that "adolescents secretly like feeling eccentric and freakish and alone" is I think perhaps missing the point. I think most adolescents don't want to feel alone, per se, they just want to feel like they have an identity that is distinct from others', particularly their parents' and other older generations'. But most adolescents still want acceptance from others in their peer group, and will spend a great amount of time and energy to ensure that they are not alone. Now, of course, a lack of availability of knowledge can solidify peer group bonds by making it difficult for people outside of the peer group to gain that knowledge. However, the knowledge within the peer group does not necessarily depend on its lack of availability to others. Rather, it depends on the fact that all those inside the peer group have it. You know the secret handshake, and so do I. So what if we got it off some website on the Internet?

Secondly, I think an argument can be made that an over-abundance of information can actually make knowing certain things more obscure. If there's just one piece of information about something, it's pretty easy to pass that information around. But if there are whole books about it, dissemination can become difficult, and soon only certain people will know all of the bits of information. So I don't think that having more information available necessarily means that it will all be known by more people.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I think the argument that knowledge somehow impedes imagination is deeply flawed. I think it is quite similar to arguments that occur about literary theory 'ruining' one's ability to pursue 'authentic' interpretations of a work. Conversely, I think that having access to others' interpretations can help you shape your own (not to get into the highly problematic notion of an 'authentic' interpretation). Similarly, think that just because you know about how something works does not prevent you from imagining it. In fact, when you learn about how something works, you do imagine it. Think about learning about optics in your high school physics class. As you looked at ray diagrams, weren't you imagining rays of light going through glass and onto dots of paper? Or electrons moving from and to protons in pith ball demonstrations? Now, perhaps the things you are imagining are different from what you would have imagined if someone asked you point-blank, "How do you think pith balls work?", but there imagination is still very much front and centre here. You've just made your imaginings more informed than they otherwise would have been.