Is Google Making us Stupid?

[robcaudill]

Google does not make us stupid. Google makes us lazy. There is a difference. Stupidity is not when a person chooses to research a subject online in a manner that takes less than a minute, over researching a subject by book in a manner that takes hours. Saving tremendous amounts of time and still getting the same result is very smart, and maybe a little lazy.
Nicholas Carr states, “Immersing myself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy… That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” The fact that Carr would blame Google, and the Internet for his lack of concentration when he reads is outrageous. Everyone’s mind wanders when they read. Maybe his mind is wandering more because he realized that there are other great things that he could be doing with his time rather than reading all day. Google has not “changed the way people think.” Google, and the rest of the Internet, have allowed us to research subjects, and read articles more quickly and efficiently. Carr cannot really believe that Google has brought our intelligence down. In fact, Carr gives no evidence or statistics that Google is bringing the nation’s intelligence down.
Carr also states that he no longer reads articles in depth, but in fact just skims over them. Carr states, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” I don’t understand how getting the same information quicker than we used to is not considered a magnificent thing. Why does it matter to Carr that he can no longer read books for hours on end when he can get the same information in just a few minutes? He should be praising Google and the rest of the Internet for opening up many more opportunities!
Carr closes his article in saying, “…as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” We do not rely on computers for our understanding of the world. We rely on computers for information, facts, and statistics. Also, the computers do not post online essays and websites on their own. Humans post on computers to relay their ideas. Humans use computers as a faster way of getting their ideas out to the rest of the world, and to express themselves. Our intelligence is not flattened into artificial intelligence, but it is boosted due to artificial intelligence. Getting more information at a quicker pace is a smart and intelligent idea. Spending hours and hours in a book in which you don’t even find the information you were looking for in the first place? That’s stupidity if you ask me.

[matthewlogan]

I completely agree with Rob that google and the internet is making us lazy. We are often given a book to read or an article to analyze. So the first thing we do is we put it down and go watch tv or go hang out with our friends. Then finally we will pick the book up, look at the back, flip to the back to see how pages it is then put it back down because we are too lazy to spend the time to read it. Instead we can type the book into google, read a couple cliff notes about it and know everything we need about the book.
Google is making us think differently. It is not making us stupid. There is nothing stupid about being resourceful and completing an assignment in a fraction of the time it would take you without the internet. The internet is not making us stupid, it is not lowering our intelligence, if anything it is boosting our intelligence by allowing us to access unlimited amounts of information. The internet is making us lazy and dependent on the internet. We depend on the internet for almost everything and that makes us lazy.

[dylantooflycrow]

I think you make a strong point here Rob. “The fact that Carr would blame Google, and the Internet for his lack of concentration when he reads is outrageous.” We all have our own little personal problems (Well not me of course but…) clearly, Carr was making a point. However, I think that we cannot blame the internet for our problems that we face as people. We are still human beings with brains and the ability to think for ourselves, we have only ourselves to blame for our problems- like overusing Google. I also liked when you said, “Google does not make us stupid. Google makes us lazy. There is a difference….Saving tremendous amounts of time and still getting the same result is very smart, and maybe a little lazy.” We have become lazy in our work ethic through overuse with Google, that does not necessarily make us stupid. Even though this is a very technically originated argument at the title, I think it’s very true. I think right now, the problem we face is extreme laziness because of the expectations of quick and easy answers. However, in the future, through overuse or abuse of search engines like Google, we will see a rise in stupidity.