Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Today it is so easy for us to sit down to do a research paper, open up the internet to look for some good sources to back up our argument, and end up on facebook or youtube five minutes later.  Let's be honest, it happens to all of us.  I would accredit this diversion to the influence of the internet -- an information god that promotes immediacy, convenience, speed, and most of all distractions.


Nicholas Carr, the author of this essay, touches on not only the influence that the internet has on our culture but also on the effects of it personally.  He says that the internet is changing the way we research topics by making them easily accessible, and it is also changing the way we think.  Before the invention of the internet, people used to be able to focus on long articles and novels and were better at the skills of deep reading and deep thinking, but now, a study conducted by a few scholars from the University College of London has proven that people are not reading deeply into the articles, they are merely skimming.  Carr has even experienced this for himself:
               
                "What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. 
                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."


Carr believes that as we use our "intellectual technologies", a phrase that was coined by the sociologist Daniel Bell, we start to resemble their characteristics.  A great example provided was the invention of the clock.  Instead of listening to our senses and the rhythm of our bodies, we now have a man-made schedule engrained into our minds of when to get up, to eat, to go to work, and to go to bed.  If the trend continues, we will inevitably start resembling the characteristics and attitudes of a computer, which in my opinion is extremely boring.  We will be a machine.


Carr had also mentioned that the media is changing as well.  Since our lives are so immersed in the internet, the older, more traditional forms of media -- newspapers, magazines, the radio, and television -- have to change their methods of giving us information as well. Carr explains that "Television programs add text crawls and pop-up adds, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-brows info-snippets."  Because we are so focused on maximizing speed, efficiency, and production, we need our other forms of media to represent this as well.  If they don't we shift our attention elsewhere.


Personally I think that it is really sad that humans, animals that are capable of building the Egyptian Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and the Colosseum of Rome without computers, rely so much on them today.  I feel like people are loosing their personalities in technology, they are simply becoming robotic and following down the path that our society thinks will eventually lead each one of us to success, money, and happiness -- people are almost afraid to think for themselves now.  I also believe that the invention of the internet has implanted the idea that it is bad to be wrong.  We need to know everything or we are labeled as stupid and unintelligent, when in reality, it is the other way around.  We gain most of our knowledge from experience and mistakes, and if we "know" everything, do we really know anything at all?


There is another side to the argument though that I find valid.  The revolution of the internet has helped us connect with people all around the world, and in turn has helped people help so many other people who are in severe need.   It has made it possible for people in the United States to connect with people in Russia in a matter of seconds, and French businessmen are now able to buy and sell things with businessmen in Australia.  Technology and the internet has helped develop our global economy, which is actually really cool!  Yes, technology has changed our thought processes and shortened our attention spans, but it also has done a lot of great things for the world.


With everything new there are pros and cons and the internet is no exception.  We just need to use it responsibly.  It is like alcohol.  It is fun to use occasionally and in moderation, but if you use it way too much, it can have damaging effects.  I believe that if we can just find a nice balance between technology and healthy thinking habits, the internet can be a very good thing for the world.