Friday, September 7, 2012

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Stupid? Mm... Not quite. Lazy? Of course. We have information at our fingertips. No one wants to search through a library full of books to find out when Malcolm X was assassinated. All we have to do is type it into Google.

I do agree with the point that society is getting too comfortable with merely reading snippets of information. All we want is the good stuff. In some respects, it isn't a bad thing. Did anyone enjoy the reading from last night? Thought so. Google not only allows us to find sources for papers, but it can also help us learn new things from the comfort of our dorm rooms. Instead of emailing a teacher for clarification on a topic discussed in class, we can google the topic. Little bits of information are helpful, but what does this say about the American attention span? Or better yet, reading level? Clearly, it's going down the drain. We like short, simple sentences. Like this. I found it ironic that the author of the article admitted he had trouble reading long blog posts, but he wrote a long and drawn-out article with a lot of unnecessary information. He didn't even talk about Google until the last few paragraphs.

Concisely, Google, the search engine, is not making us stupid. It's everything else on the internet! Our blog posts are written in a simplified language so that they appeal to other classmates, the same way that news articles are dumbied down so they appeal to readers trying to get the national scoop in 15 minutes.

No comments:

Post a Comment