There was once a very elaborate way to thinking and coming up with ideas when we had little to rely on except for our thinking ability. We used to travel through a number of thought processes that guided our way to the correct answer, and the thought process used to be an integral part of this tedious exercise. Through this thought process, however, we were able to shape and organize our ideas into a form that used to make more sense to others. For me personally, the thinking process was quite remarkable and provided greater opportunity to exercise my mind. Today, we are able to skip a number of steps and come straight to the answer, thanks to a variety of search engines including Google, Bing, MSN, yahoo etcetera. Bypassing all the thought process and the elaboration, these search engines present a number of viable answers that we make use of. It saves us the trouble of skimming through piles of textbooks and encyclopedias and from reading several footnotes and traveling from one book to another onto yet another. This might have saved us many hours we spend at the library, and may have increased the extent of information that we can access. There is however one hitch. Google is making us dim-witted and is robbing us of the ability to come up with ideas on our own.
Google has become a very efficient tool that caters for all of our information needs whether at the workplace, at school or at college. The fact however remains unchanged; that Google is limiting our thinking ability. Since we skip the thought process when coming up with ideas altogether, it is becoming harder for us to think and be creative on our own. Also, because Google provides us with premeditated answers that are copied and pasted and cited from so many different sources and that bounce from one website to another, it may be presenting us with sufficient material for research, but is also is impeding us from thinking outside the box and coming up with more creative and innovative answers and materials. The problem is further made worse because most school and college teachers are calling upon students to give references while writing. This practice may be encouraging students to read through and understand the material that might be that we could summon from our own common sense is also being lost. All we are doing is paraphrasing and packaging the information already available on the internet in a different style under another name. Besides, when we think about the idea on our own, we explore in our mind several other possible options that do not fit quite so wonderfully. They are nevertheless still there, do a great job at expanding our mental horizon, and force us to think ingeniously. Ever since Google came into our lives, we are going through this exercise less often and are not thinking as smartly.
Nicholas Carr explains in his article ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’ how he is compromising his ability to focus and concentrate on longer and more wearisome items because he has access to rich and concentrated information, where he picks up a number of ideas and uses them according to requirement. This makes reading through information, which has, less numb of ideas more mind-numbing and our attention eventually wanders off elsewhere. This however is not a problem that only Carr is going through. I have heard many people complain about how hard it is for them to bear through lengthy articles with information scattered over the entire article or an essay, because watching videos and skimming through online articles seems like an easy way out. Another problem is that since we are focusing so much on the importance of concise and to-the-point information, doing anything that may require a bit of hard work and use of the mind is something we mostly tend to avoid.
The debate launched by Nicholas Carr had many following and defending the claim, that Google was not making us dumb after all. During February 2010, 895 experts were surveyed and asked if they thought Google had a role in making us less mentally active. 76 percent of these experts agreed to the statement that, “People’s use of internet is enhancing human intelligence by providing them unprecedented access to more information.” The survey also presented a few additional arguments a handful of which are as follows. The survey states that Google is making us more creative in approaching solutions to problems because it allows less time to recall and, thus, leaves more room for planning and implementation. The experts of the survey also argued that the internet more particularly Google is taking on a few of our responsibilities including the ability to recall facts. There are therefore things that we could lean on search engines like Google for, which could save us considerable amounts of energy. Another point made during the survey was that it was not fair to judge the sum total of what Google offers by pointing out the shortcomings it is bringing forward in us. It may be making us slow by some standards but is also making us more intelligent at a number of activities like evaluating information. All of the above seem like reasonable counter-arguments, but Google is also depriving of information and thought processes that we used to stumble across when researching. That interesting information that used to catch our eye increased our knowledge that much more. Running a Google search for a topic however limits the range of our search and keeps the knowledge we might gain from the research confined to within that range. In addition, with Google taking over the ability to recall facts and statistics, we might be becoming weaker at retaining knowledge and information because we never attempt at recalling anything.
Today, we find ourselves depending on the services that Google has to offer largely that we can easily make a list of things that we cannot do without Google. Here is one of those lists. We can most definitely not spell words without Google. We type in so many searches into Google, and most of the times are corrected by the ‘did you mean’ facility because of one spelling mistake or another. I know I am. Research is another activity we might be stuck at without Google at our disposal. There may be a number of other options available to us, but most of us type in Google at an impulse because it provides us with more relevant searches on any topic at all. In comparison to other search engines on the internet, Google captures about 67% of the market. We can also not translate from one language to another without support from Google, and finding our way around town is a whole other story. I would say that Google is making us dumb. It may be giving us time to plan properly and may provide us with all the relevant information, but the fact remains the same. We are paying less attention to our spellings, to remembering facts and famous quotes because Google can do that for us. God only knows what we are going to do if we do not have access to it anymore.
Works Cited
CARR, NICHOLAS. Is Google Making Us Stupid? 1 July 2008. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/>.
Weir, David. Experts Say Google Does Not Make Us Stupid. 23 February 2010. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/experts-say-google-does-not-make-us-stupid/>.
World, Maps of. Is Google Making Us Stupid? - Facts & Infographic. <http://www.mapsofworld.com/poll/is-google-making-us-stupid-facts-infographic-text.html>.
