Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Is Google Making Us Stupider?

Do I feel like Google is making us stupid? I was asked to answer this question after reading the article Is Google Making Us Stupider? by Nicholas Carr. Well, let me evaluate it. The world is at my fingertips. While I sit typing this blog, perhaps I want to open a side tab and read about an upcoming movie. Or maybe I'm interested in the calories in a specific food I like. Or maybe I could look at the lyrics for the song that is playing on "iTunes" in the distance behind my internet on my desktop.
There are so many advantages to using Google. I believe the most beneficial one is the act of saving time, instead of physically going to the library. The myriad of information searched through google is infinite, while I can basically have any question answered, plus more. Google extends through every single website on the internet, which is indefinitely awesome.
While this sounds like the best invention of mankind, I feel a little stupider than my parents did while they were in college. Well, maybe not stupider... because without Google I wouldn't be filled with the academic information I have in me, besides what I learn in school. However, Google makes me feel lazy. While I would need to get off the couch and go to the library to literally find a book, to find the page and then read, I would much prefer to type in the few key terms that I need to research on a website that is bookmarked in Safari. Pretty sure that back in the 70s, my dad could not type in "What is the state bird of Oklahoma?" on his Macbook, which I'm pretty sure he didn't know of either, the bird or what a Macbook was, when he was eighteen.
Although I feel "lazy" when I'm using google, and I hate to phrase it this way, but whose it hurting? I don't mind feeling lazy if it will get me somewhere, such as broadening my educational horizons. I will obviously learn more if I can expand my mind with the click of a mouse, instead of the turn of a page. The hyperlinks to hyperlinks will pull me to different sources of information, that I may not have even thought about reading and learning about beforehand. Google does ALL of our pre-thinking, which cuts out a chunk of activity that we would have been forced to do, if we were reading a book. Unfortunately, our generation is not exposed to learning through books as much, rather we choose to read online instead. But if we are producing students who are just as bright as they were before computers, and the infamous "Google", who cares how they got there?

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Student at Hofstra University