Are We Really Stupid, or Just Lazy?

Google and other various search engines are not necessarily making us more stupid, but they are undoubtedly making us more lazy. Instead of taking time to browse through long passages from heavy, thick books from the local library, we now simply hop on the web, type in what we're looking for, and click various links on Google until we find something resembling the answer or fact that we're looking for.

Something is lost in this process though. I remember (oddly enough) doing projects in elementary school before my family had a computer. I dreaded going to the library to look up the few paragraphs that I needed to cite in my report that would be accompanying my diorama made of Crayola Model Magic. It seemed like an endless task that would leave me tired, exhausted, and drained in the library for hours on end. However, looking back on it, I found many different facts from skimming those books manually, without the aid of a computer; facts that I might have otherwise missed. Oftentimes, the material that I ended up using came from the paragraph or chapter that I least expected it to come from.

Another hindrance that power-browsing on the web creates is the difficulty to read long articles novels. It is no surprise that this generation's attention spans are significantly shorter than those of decades past. In today's world, the culture wants everything immediately (I think of the Netflix commercial featuring "The Wrightnows"). Don't get me wrong, Google comes in handy for quick facts. However, I don't like using it too much for projects or papers. If I do, I make sure that the website I'm clicking on from Google is reliable, and then I read it until I find the information I need. Yeah, it's tedious, but I like learning the other information that is not necessarily what I need to know about but nonetheless interesting. I get worried that people (myself included), because of these shortened attention spans, will lose their drive for learning and even possibly their creativity. If we want everything to be done quickly, our schoolwork will become sloppy and poorly written. Also, we will likely not put our creativity to use, simply because that would take too long and create too much work.

Another thing that interested me is the idea that people think differently and write differently depending on the medium with which they use. I realized that it is very true that the material that we use to write (pen versus keyboard, etc.) influences what we write and the way we write it. When I am on the computer, I find that my first instinct is to type without using much capitalization or punctuation. I try to get what is in my head out onto a virtual piece of paper as fast as I can without giving any attention to sentence structure or grammar. However, when I pick up a pen and put it to a piece of looseleaf paper, my brain immediately clicks into gear and makes sure that I dot all the "i"s and cross all the "t"s.

Also, I often find that sometimes when doing homework or reading an article in the newspaper, I'll come to the end of a paragraph and have no idea what I just read. I'll realize that I should go back and read it again to try and fully comprehend it, but sometimes I find myself not wanting to even make that small effort.

On different note, I'm a little freaked out by the thought of a supercomputer that is smarter than a human being. What's even more scary to me is the possibility of this computer being directly linked to someone's brain. Imagine having all of that information immediately available in your mind. That's a LOT of facts. I think I would be completely overwhelmed by all that instant information.

Anyway...

Although this makes it seem like I am completely against Google and all other search engines, I'm not. I use them just as much as the next person. Google makes valuable information widely available to people all over the world. It provides us with access to websites that contain information that we might not be able to find in a typical library. Google can be a wonderful thing, but I think that we just all have to make sure that we are not becoming to lazy or slacking in our research and writing.