Tech scholar, Nicholas Carr, asked this question in the 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly magazine. He believes that “the ease of online searching and distractions of browsing through the web were possibly limiting his capacity to concentrate.”
It is believed that the accessibility that Google has given us has affected our intellectual development. Actually sitting down to read a book allows us to draw our own conclusions and analyze a work. Very few people have actually read all the books that have been assigned to them in high school. Instead, we rely on our faithful cliff notes and spark notes. Often times, we forfeit our ability to develop our own ideas by deciding to quickly skim through content on Google.
We have become “skimming readers” instead of “engaged readers.”
Some experts disagree with Carr. They believe that, yes, Google offers us easy access to tons of information, but we have to digest what we skim and formulate the ideas within the actual information. Google doesn’t do everything for us. Google doesn’t think for us. Or does it?
When decide to use Google to find specific information, it doesn’t show us exactly what we want. It shows us what it thinks we want, or things that are similar to what we want. We actually have to sift through the endless amount of information before we actually find what we need. By that time, we’ve wasted time skimming websites that we had hoped contained the information we needed, and our minds are filled with irrelevant information.
In my opinion, I just think Google will enable us to use our brain in a different way. There are benefits to having easy access to tons of information. It allows people all over the world to have access to information and opinions they would never be able to encounter in their environments. This situation is very similar to GPS, calculators, and all other improvements that make mundane things easier.
What do you think?
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1499/google-does-it-make-us-stupid-experts-stakeholders-mostly-say-no
I can definently understand this. We rely so much on technology to answer our questions that the ability to think independently has lessoned. We have become impatient when finding the answers instead of gaining more from knowledgeable material in book sources.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting blog i really understand why now
ReplyDeleteGoogle makes me smarterrr lol
ReplyDeletei think google is jus an easier way to find things
ReplyDeleteI think google is a shortcut. A lot of people don't take the proper time to do research because they can just search it on google.
ReplyDeletei think google just provides everything in a easy form and i love it! lol
ReplyDeletei agree that it makes a "dumber" when it comes down to being able to do things on our own without relying on it to give us the answer or direct us to the answer but then again i also agree with you saying that it just makes us better advanced when it comes to being able to look things up in an easier way. lol
ReplyDeleteI don't think google makes us dumber. I think it makes us less capable to do things on our own, like everyone else said. But if anything, it expands our knowledge.
ReplyDelete