The downside of having so much information readily available to us is that we might treat the internet as a second brain, as a sort of crutch to rely on if we cannot be bothered truly learning or even remembering what we have read. This lowers the urgency for reading and properly learning things - a lot of processed information will never reach the knowledge stage.
While being taught in class, there are students who ask their professors whether the material is assessable, as if something isn't worth learning unless it'll be directly assessed in the final exam, because if the student ever does actually need it, they can simply look it up on the net.
However, there are undoubtedly many positive points for having information so readily available to us and I don't think I really need to go into that territory. But I will point out that some professions have been shifting their focus such that the ability to learn is just as important as knowledge already acquired (the software industry for example). The availability of information facilitates the on-job learning required for projects.
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