Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Google -- Harnessing or Harming?

With a catchy title, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” immediately caught my interest from this week’s list of readings. Unfortunately, the title is all that kept my interest. Hmm, perhaps due to the author’s notion that Google may be making us stupider? (I’ll get to this point in a few minutes). One interesting tidbit was from a published study of online research habits that examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites. The finding: “people using the sites exhibited ‘a form of skimming activity,’ hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they ‘bounce’ out to another site”. Interesting research, I’d agree. Forget reading long novels, I’d prefer reading short 2-3 paragraph blogs. We’ve been spoiled with Google’s efficiency feeding us (most of the time) relevant and useful information in the first few results of natural search. So is Google Making Us Stupid? I wouldn’t go that far; it’s a different way of thinking. When Gutenburg’s printing press came on the scene in the 15th century, critics worried that the availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness. To avoid losing anyone’s interest, what’s to come? The availability of books has shown great advancement in developing knowledge and intellect, what will Google bring?

1 comment:

  1. I think the internet promotes efficiency. Also, I attribute the internet's wonder to my vast knowledge of random possibly useless information. I read more now than I did before I had internet access which I believe has increased my intelligence. I bet many have had similar experiences! The possibilities of google are endless, especially with the new tools (google apps) and google books! What will they think of next?!

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