How does reading on the internet lead to deep analytical thinking?

How is reading on the internet better than books in terms of analysis of the content? Two examples,

1) The ability to research inter-textual connections.
(Instead of having to go through tons of books)

2) The ability to speak with other users in the comment section.
(Instead of just writing an essay response, you can have real time conversations with many users and gather many thoughts and input)

Please help me find more so i can write my thesis for an english paper. Thank you!

Access to wider range of infomration and sources such as journals. that said, my essay has 11 books referenced and jsut 2 websites

This.

Plus, depending on what you're studying, you can get different world views. I know that since I've started posting here (or just reading here), I've been exposed to ways of thinking that I didn't know existed.

Half looking here half writing my essay- i was trying to add that the availability lead to more comparisons being able to be drawn which will help the critical thinking of compare and contrast

Very good point about where people are from too- i too have found it useful to get the aspects of people from other countries like i did with the death penalty- fomr people who live in places where it sill exists. i could not hope to fully understand it without their help

Glad our barbaric country could help...or something.

well my argument was to debate 'agianst' it but to be fair i did sometimes slip back to my point of view of killing them!

Thank you everyone for the great responses. the only problem is that most of what you guys said falls under the category of intertextual connections. i need a third example that stands out from both connections and being able to speak with others. please continue to help it is much appreciated.

Reading material online opens up a whole new way of interacting with the information that is being imparted to us. Books and television (our previous dominant sources of information) are one sided. Somebody tells you what to think and you either accept it or you do not. Online we are given the ability to interact and the ability to form our own conclusions.

As an example if I read a book about the Greek economy that would be it. I read the book and I either accept or reject the author's conclusions. If however, I read an article online it is very easy for me to find the source documents and statistics concerning their federal budget, GDP, exports, imports, whatever else I may want to find, and I am then able to form my own opinions over and above what the article may have been talking about in the first place.

You can get information that is relevant and up to date.

this is what i was going to say. i wouldn't have said it so well but my point would have been roughly the same.

Why don't you do some reading about it on the internet and see what you think of it.

One of the biggest things about the internet to broaden my horizons was the exposure to people from around the world. To learn about their lives and cultures from first hand accounts.

I may not be communicating this very clearly (in and out while making christmas candy etc) but basically it pulled me out of my little world and exposed me to a much larger world forcing me to re-evaluate what I thought I always 'knew'.

Ditto. (cept for the christmas candy bit)