by Bill Ives
April 1, 2010 at 2:10 pm
· Filed under Search, Web 2.0
Pew Research conducts a “future of the Internet” survey every few years. They include some provocative open-ended questions and give them to a chosen collection of observers in the areas of technology and society. Andy Oram was one of these and he published the questions and his longer that requested responses. The first one was, “Will Google make us stupid?” Now I generally agree with the idea that there are no stupid questions. This one comes close but it might serve the purpose of pointing out why the answer is no.
Some advances in information processing have been met with resistance and perhaps even caused people to raise the above question. The phonetic alphabet reduced our dependence on memory and allowed for the literal record of ideas. It did perhaps make our memory less potent as we had the crutch of a written record to make up for lapses. However, the numerous advantages certainly out weight any losses here.
Some inventions do not seem to carry many negative consequences such as the calculator, at least from my perspective. Others provide great benefits but at a cost. The automobile gets us places faster but has increased pollution, results in many deaths, and increased many countries dependence on foreign oil. However, we would not give it up.
I think that search engines like Google belong in the same category as the calculator. I do not see any major consequences here. As Andy writes in opposition to Nicolas Carr, “Google frees the time we used to spend pulling together the last 10% of facts we need to complete our research. I read Carr’s article when The Atlantic first published it, but I used a web search to pull it back up and review it before writing this response. Google is my friend.” It is my friend too and it provides more than the last 10% for me. However, like any information tool, the final responsibility for determining the value of the content lies with the person using it.
Despite the day, Pew actually asked this question, at least if you believe Andy and he wrote his piece a number of days ago.
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ffblogApril 1st, 2010 at 2:10 pm |
New: : http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2010/04/01/4752/
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post on Will Google Make Us Stupid? http://bit.ly/9RiBeE
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RT @BillIves: post on Will Google Make Us Stupid? http://bit.ly/9RiBeE #ESS10
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RT @sympmarc: RT @BillIves: post on Will Google Make Us Stupid? http://bit.ly/9RiBeE | I hope so…
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Will Google Make Us Stupid? http://bit.ly/bCyCds
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fast forward.. Will Google Make Us Stupid? – Pew Research conducts a “future of the Internet” survey every few year… http://ow.ly/16XnA3
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No, Facebook doesn’t cause these things, but many who are already plagued by them flock to it and the problems are exhaserbated (spelling?) Facebook allows people who are depressed to hide and withdraw further.
It doesn’t cause jealousy. The problem of mistrust, not feeling like your getting enough attention is already there. Again it must magnifies it.
A better question, Can Social Media offer solutions instead of magnification? I did notice that Facebook tries to get you to connect with friends that you haven’t "shared" with in a while.
For "healthy" people social media is fun. I enjoyed sending gifts to my friends from my silly games. I finally decided that the games took too much time and I would rather spend that time interacting through the posts. Of course some real interaction would be best.
I think it magnifies good things more, but good rarely sells in the media. Media likes to focus on the negative.
Will Google make us stupid, no. Again, it just magnifies a growing problem where people don’t think through things on their own and want to be spoon fed.
Anyway, sorry for being so long.
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Chris – Thanks for your excellent comment – the longer the better. Bill
This comment was originally posted on Portals and KM
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