Google...

After reading the Nicholas Carr article, I think that there is an argument to be made that Google is making us stupid, however, I don't think that it is happening in quite the way that Carr describes. Google, and the internet in general, is changing the way that people look for and disseminate certain types of information. However, I find it to be something of a stretch to say that spending time of the internet makes one unable or unwilling to read War and Peace. Sure, the internet gives us a level of instant gratification when it comes to research or reference questions, but it seems strange for a lit major to cite the internet as what caused him to stop reading books. While the internet has made it possible to spend all your time reading (or skimming) blogs and online articles, this isn't really an accurate substitute for reading a book. In the article Nietzsche's friend is quoted as saying that language is affected by the quality of pen and paper. The message is a product of the medium, and I believe, that there will continue to be a place for reading books from cover to cover (or on a Kindle... but you get the idea.)

That being said, the internet is changing how we search and disseminate information. But is this really us becoming stupid? A person doing research on the internet is now given immediate access to thousands of resources at once. To find exactly what we're looking for, we have to skim, to read everything would be far too time-consuming, and a general waste of time. I was interested in the part of the article that likened web searching to efficiency algorithms in manufacturing. Google is trying to make their search engine the most efficient in terms of mental movement. As Carr states, "The more pieces of information we can 'access' and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers." So what' stupid about that? The article describes how the invention of the printing press and the invention of the written word, once created a concern that minds would be weakened as a result. And though they have surely changed our thought processes, they have also strengthened certain mental skills.

So where I think that Google is making us stupid, is when a simple search engine like Google is used as the definitive information searching tool. As we discussed in class there are many useful google search tools and tactics that can be extremely helpful, such as Google Scholar or using the advanced search features. But to simply type a search phrase into Google, is not the most reliable of research tools. Students, and all internet users, need to learn about evaluating websites, such as with the ACRL criteria that we discussed in class. There is the often cited example that martinlutherking.org, while one of the top 3 cites when "Martin Luther King" is googled, is in fact a hate-site. The fact that it was linked to a large number of times, (either intentionally as a search engine optimization tactic, or mistakenly by people who didn't take that time to look at the site in earnest and were fooled by it's harmless appearance) makes it a top Google result, even though it isn't exactly an objective research tool. The Google algorithm for search results makes it susceptible to people manipulating results. This has been done in the past in the forms of competitions to make a certain site the number one result, or as a joke or to make a point. A few years ago there was a "Google-bomb" that made the #1 result for the search "miserable failure" the biography of President George W. Bush on whitehouse.org. So when using Google, it's important to evaluate sites and not trust that a top ranking on Google is not assurance for a reliable or relevant website.

So is Google making us dumb? At the very least it's making us lazy. You can use it to find almost anything without really having to look that hard. Last year a co-worked of mind posed a challenge to refrain from using Google for one week. Believe me, it's harder than it seems. Or perhaps, harder than is should be.