Is Google Making Us Stupid ?

By: RH

Is Google Making Us Stupid ?

Maps of World put together this extensive look at all that Google does and all that we use it for. They look at the point made by Nicholas Carr in 2008 that Google was making users slow learners. The notion that those who are running the commercial Internet do not want the user to take a slow,deliberate approach to what they are reading and searching.

I would say no, I think the quick access to facts and figures makes us smarter. I think it depends on each user's ability to retain facts or memorize them.

Courtesy of Maps of World

Comments

[todd]

Is Google Making Us Stupid ?

I remember as a kid I didn't have "The Masters collection A-Z Encyclopedia Brittanica" so for me to find an answer to something I would have to hop my fat ass on my bike or get my grandfather to take me to the library. Obviously this never happened on the same day I have the question so by the time I got to the library I forgot what the hell the question was. LOL So I will give a big "Hell Yeah" it makes us smarter and smarter "Instantly"

Love all these graphics RH. You always have cool stuff to see and read.

[RH]

Thanks for the comment Todd glad you like them. I know that quick access to stuff has helped me learn a lot of topics I had no interest in and learned them fast.

[Mike]

I agree w/ the findings of the Columbia Psychology department, based on my own anecdotal self-eval. I also do genuinely feel that after living in my current city for over 6 years I am still horrible w/ directions and I blame it in large part on the fact I've come to rely too much on Google Maps, so I've failed at some level to internalize my own map of the city in my brain. I do agree there is a massive benefit to having all this knowledge instantly available and that everyone benefits from the free flow of information, and that I myself have a much broader knowledge-base and exposure to new ideas as a result, but one has to ask whether simply having more knowledge makes us more intelligent. I personally don't think so. Knowledge and wisdom are not synonymous. I don't believe knowledge and intelligence are even synonymous. I also worry that Google is helping to homogenize knowledge and homogenize culture. Google results are certainly becoming more and more homogenous. In an ideal world Google will not hold such a dominant monopoly on search (and all the other various areas described) and people would access the internet in a plethora of ways via a wider swath of channels, imo.

[Jeff Schneider]

Google makes Domainers look uber stupid. They have put together a Matrix style Maze to confuse Domain owners.

We contend that to employ Domain names in a fashion to reach their highest and best use parking is highly unproductive. Domain names are Strategic Marketing tools designed for Online business expansion.

No I am not drinking or smoking, but an analogy just popped into my head. Remember the movie Matrix? Where vast pods of humans are banked so the matrix could live off humans energy? Say you look at Google as the matrix that has vast stores of .COMs in Parking pods that they feed just enough oxygen or money to these dormant .COMs keeping them under control through the parking system, whereby the .COM never gets to break free and develop into a business. Isn't this a Matrix?

Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)