Over the past years, I have had this feeling of something tinkering with my mind, remapping the central circuitry at the same time it is also reprogramming my memory. It is like my brain is not working anymore and there are a lot of changes taking place. I cannot think the way I used where reading and capturing the content from any book or article was something very easy. Now my level of concentration has drastically decreased to less than two hours and this is really making me wonder what happened. There is something that is dragging me backward and I know it is none other than the use of Google. Currently, people spend a lot of time on the internet surfing and getting different information, and this is not doing us any good. We rely on the information that is ready and use it without thinking. The use of the internet has triggered our ability to think and this is the reason I believe the use of internet is making us stupid.
Google has changed the working of the writers where Google determines everything they write. Ever since the emergence of the Google, the research skills have improved. In the beginning, people could take their time, read immensely, and summarize the content before completing their articles. However, with the presence of Google, things have changed, and the minds of the writers have been shifted away (Billout 1). Spending a lot of years on Google with information available with just a click has made the writers lazy and less focused. They can no longer concentrate for long, and this is posing an adverse impact on the ability of the writers to read the books. This is because the use of the Google changes the nature of the mind, in that, with the availability of information, it is hard for individuals to conceptualize the meaning of reading and to concentrate for the writers (Carr 1). Carr also argues that the more the time he spends on the internet, the more it was hard for him to focus and this is the reason most of the time he was only skimming and browsing online “I’m not thinking the way I used to.” Basing on this argument, he believes that it is the internet that has impacted the way of thinking negatively, and this is how it is making people stupid (Roberts 2).
Students have not been exempted from the impact of Google. In the past, students took the time to research and completed their term papers without any problem. However, with the onset of Google, things have changed, and students no longer go for hardcopy books for studying. Instead, the only thing these students do is to go online, search information on Google and write the papers. At the same time, these students take less time to think about what they are writing as long as they have completed the documents, and this has resulted in the increased number of plagiarism cases.
The presence of Google has also reduced the capacity of children to master different contents since they all know you just press ‘enter’ and you will have all the information. The above argument is backed up by one of the studies that were conducted on the impacts of Google to human memory. According to this report, it was concluded that 90% of the population are suffering from amnesia (Roberts 1). This is because 70% of the population have not memorized the phone`s number for their children and partners. It is also extreme to the extent that most of the people cannot tell the home numbers for their friends. It is a Google Effect that does not allow people to maintain data in their memory, with the assumption that the information is just a click away. From this study, Google has impacted the minds of people in that they cannot memorize simple information, which can be termed as stupidity. It is also argued that Google affects the way people keep information, which changes our mind only to remember the information that we can locate quickly (Roberts 1). People no longer struggle to maintain the information for long especially with the knowledge that they can obtain the information quickly as they want.
Further, when looking for information, it is important to know the kind of resources that you need to use. However, in most cases, the recommended sources that should be employed are scholarly reviewed journals and other incredible sources. This is because the information in these sources is regarded as reliable as it is believed people took their time to complete the study. It is a challenge when one uses sources like Wikipedia to get information that they believe it is real. Once this individual believe in such information, they end up lacking the required information about important details, and this can be considered as stupidity. The worst scenario is when the wrong information sticks in people`s memory only to realize that everything that they believed is not right.
Despite the proof on how Google has affected the lives of individuals, many opponents believe that Google has positive benefits to the people. Imagine the world where we have to go through different books to get original information. This could be the hardest thing for everyone, and it will also be a challenge for people especially students to get the required information. However, with the presence of Goggle, life is comfortable, and we do not have to struggle anymore. Just a click and all the necessary details will be available to the user (Billout 2-3). Carry also concur with the importance of Google for making life easy. According to Carr, the internet has been critical especially to the Scientists who have spent a lot of time on the internet, and through thus they have managed to crack complicated problems. The change in the brain has also given every person a chance to access information on the internet database without a challenge. At the same time, the use of Google also saves time as individual take less time when searching for information that is important. Unlike other situations where an individual had to open a book after a book searching for information, now Google does everything.
At the same time, Google is believed to play a critical role in making us become more creative when dealing with problems and also Integrative when it comes to our thinking. This is because we take less time when recalling or generating a solution, according to Paul Jones. For instance, when solving a mathematical problem, one does not have to concentrate so much. The only thing to do is to use the past example in the analysis, and this will make it easy for one to solve issues. Thanks to Google that has terminated the situation of information scarcity. There were times where people could not get the required information, forcing them to purchase multiple books for references (Carr 1). However, with the presence of Google, nothing is impossible, information is all over as long as one knows how to use it and avoid the cases of plagiarism.
In conclusion, it is true Google has made the life of people easy by providing any required information at any time. The fact is a person no longer has to struggle for information, and this has also created to time saving. However, this seems important, but the impacts of Google are great, and no one can convince me that people have become lazy and they cannot think critically as they used. The mind of an individual is supposed to think and solve problems for development. Google has stopped the working of the mind in some ways. People no longer have to think what they are writing especially students. They just go to the search engine extract information without analysis and begin writing. At the same time, others end up writing wrong information, and the fact that they have not researched this is the information they believe. Lack of information and the inability of the mind to think and handle issues is stupidity. People have become a slave to Google, and this is the reason I believe Google is making us stupid by reducing the ability of the mind to maintain simple information.
Work Cited
Billout, Guy. Is Google Making Us Stupid? The Atlantic (2008): 1-6.
Carr, Nicolas. Is Google Making us Stupid”? The Atlantic (2008): 1-7.
Roberts, Genevieve. Google Effect: is technology making us stupid? New York, 15th July 2015.
