The Internet is bad for democracy

[Simon]

I just read this by Clive Hamilton:

"He understands that we are both citizens and consumers, and that consumers will never

solve the climate change problem however much politicians might hope

otherwise. While Flannery ends his book with a list of 'eleven things

you can do' as a consumer, Monbiot urges his readers to join political

movements that pressure governments and the big polluters. In his last

chapter he writes incisively about why people have not been massing

in the streets, or even engaging in guerrilla protests, as they once did.

Among other factors, he blames that over-hyped tool of post-modern

politics, the internet—which, he writes, 'allows us to believe that we can

change the world without leaving our chairs'.14 By giving the illusion of

individual power to desk-bound revolutionaries, the internet has in fact

only hastened the erosion of real democratic participation."

Sorry for the crappy formatting but it's copied straight from a crappy pdf.

Do you agree with Hamilton? Has the Internet "hastened the erosion of real democratic participation"?