Is Google making us less intelligent?

Is Google making us and subsequently our kids less intelligent nowadays because its much easier to find information by searching online? This discussion popped up when I was driving back home today and I thought it was an interesting topic to write about.

I personally don’t think Google is making us, or me rather, dumber because information is all over the Internet. I think you still need a bit of motivation to search online. There are a lot of people who doesn’t even use Google or any other search engines to look for answers to their problems even though the information is right in front of them, they just need to search (I won’t go there) ! And sometimes it takes a bit of tweaking when searching because different combination of keywords may yield slightly different search results. And just because the information is there doesn’t mean its 100% accurate, and WiKi is a very good example and schools have stressed many times NOT to do research based on WiKi. That’s is also another reason why I don’t think search engines are making us dumber because when you are searching for an answer, unless you are absolutely sure that the answer you found right away is 100% accurate, you will pretty much have to go through at least a few more results to confirm how accurate the information really is.

In the end, yes you no longer have to open up a dictionary or go to the library to look for information. But that doesn’t mean you are or will be less intelligent by searching conveniently on the net. Its still up to the person to find the answers and its just a different mean of finding them by searching online. Therefore, I think its actually the opposite, in which Google is making us, or rather people that hunger for more knowledge smarter instead because its much more convenient to look for and find answers online than going to the local library every time. I’m sure everyone would rather “Google” something rather than driving out to the library in Winter when its minus 30 degrees!

What do you guys think?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 6:12 pm