Is Google Making Us Stupid? 636
mjasay writes "Is Google making us stupid? Following a growing body of research within neuroscience, Carr argues that as we use the Web 'we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.' This sounds great: Who wouldn't want to have the 'recall' capacity of Google? But, as Carr writes: 'The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition. ... The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It's becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV. When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is recreated in the Net's image.' In other words, as we 'go online' in increasing numbers and to an increasing degree, are we losing our ability to think coherently and deeply, preferring instead to process byte-sized information quickly, regurgitate 140-character 'tweets,' and skim thought? Is the concern overblown, or are we becoming the Web that we created?"
Do calculators make us worse at math? (Score:4, Interesting)
In some ways, the scale of it is different, and it will be interesting to see how a kid born in 1995 thinks differently at 30 than one born in 1975, but still.
The net gives us all of the knowledge of humanity at our fingertips. It frees us from thinking about facts and gives us more time for abstract thinking and problem solving. At least for those of us who remember a time before google. Maybe a child born today really will be made dumb by google.
Just In Time Information Vs Stupidity (Score:4, Interesting)
The internet (and to a lesser extent, Google) could be making us stupid
There is so much information out there, it's rapidly becoming impossible for me to read "all the classics" in my leisure time. So the answer is to make a machine do it and just access the information just in time.
I don't know if it's making us stupider or merely more boring or even, perhaps, more effective at a specialized skill while lacking breadth?
If it's making us stupid you should at least be able to provide evidence that we are worse at academics than we have been prior to the internet. I'm sorry but claiming the youth are no longer interested in the media that mattered to prior generations just doesn't cut it.
I'm sure I'll bitch that my son doesn't read every Philip K. Dick book or Ray Bradbury short story when I'm long in the tooth. I think it would be unfair to claim that makes him stupid, however.
Both yes and no (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, Google has brought me into contact with exponentially more information than I would have otherwise had. Pre-internet, we just used to believe the person deemed most knowledgeable on the topic. Post-internet, we now look stuff up to settle disputes of knowledge. In fact, some of the stuff we all 'knew' then was wrong.
If any of this information is 'sticking' we're probably smarter because of it.
Stupider? I don't think so. (Score:2, Interesting)
library research in WarGames (Score:4, Interesting)
I think its much more important with what you do with your raw material afterwards than how painful it was to obtain the materials. I'd prefer a studing to write a novel critical review of 2 or 3 major conflicting sources rather than some weak regurgitation (or direct copy) of a large number of sources.
Re:Both yes and no (Score:3, Interesting)
If all you're looking for is simple answers/facts/etc, then Google is pretty easy, and like you said, you can grab that info quickly and then forget about it. If you want more in-depth understanding of a particular topic, chances are the internet has that bouncing around somewhere as well, and Google's not a bad place to find it.
I fail to see how looking up the capital of Argentina the "old way" in a paper bound encyclopedia is anymore educational than looking it up on the internet. If all I care about is the capital, then I'll skim a website or a book all the same until I find it, then close the page. If I've got the time and desire to learn more about Argentina, then I'll read some of the text around it. And through the magic of hyperlinks, the internet has much more text "around" it.
I think you can also make a pretty strong argument that the important part of being smarter is less about memorizing random information and more about being able to analyze the information and then make your own decisions based upon it. Being able to pull that information off the top of your head is great, but I think it's a fair trade to have quick access to billions of times of more information if the tradeoff is that I don't remember as much of it.
Re:Isn't this true of any technology? (Score:2, Interesting)
Possibly a dangerous development .. (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether that will happen or not, remains to be seen, of course.
Re:Not Google. (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, and plus the "facts" are changing at such a rapid pace, that knowing them in your memory is pointless when you can get the current "facts" with a few keystrokes.
I heard of some nit out there that didn't think that Einstein was that smart because he didn't know how many feet were in a mile. Einstein's response, "I can look that up".
So, by the nit's logic, we are all as smart as Einstein now
Re:Isn't this true of any technology? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oddly enough, without the ability to memorise a bunch of boring facts, it's impossible to derive a concept. Or be able to evaluate the validity of the concepts.
I don't care whether it's rote memorisation of multiplication tables by grade schoolers, memorisation of names and dates for high schoolers studying history (or whatever they call it today), or a shitload of Latin by those studying some of the sciences, without being able to do the work, and actually doing it, you can't possibly progress to understanding anything.
For most, I guess, that's too hard, especially when Google not only provides such a convenient excuse, but also proxies your own knowledge so nothing is ever required or expected of you.
Re:Not Google. (Score:5, Interesting)
The ability to successfully process and analyze information is far more rare than the ability to regurgitate facts. Now the the internet is decreasing the need to memorize mounds of facts, the people who got classified as smart simply because they were able to memorize gobs and gobs of useless facts are no longer as valued. So we're left with the subset who could actually process, analyze and synthesize information to begin with.
Re:Both (Score:5, Interesting)
Good points.
Here's the old adage: You know how stupid the average person is? Statistically, half the people are more stupid than that.
Google might shape stupidity in new and different ways, just like literacy did back in an earlier day. But whether most people are saying "I heard it in the marketplace", "I read it in the newspaper", or "I googled it" doesn't much matter: the intelligence divide will continue to separate those who make decisions based on what some authorities say from those who make decisions through their own critical thinking.
The important thing is whether Google is becoming a catalyst for changing the compounds of administratium that we all have to deal with. The amount of administratium in the local universe appears to be constant for human scale time periods, but if Google is increasing the rate at which administratium oxides ("corporate rust") are converted to more reactive compounds of the element, then the upper quartile of intelligent people need to take notice, and make appropriate adjustments to the strategies and tactics that they use to guide the administrators.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not Google. (Score:3, Interesting)
If memorization were de-emphasized in education perhaps the ability to quickly research subjects to form thoughts and opinions on them would be seen as something valuable. Isn't that what learning, and being smart, are all about?
Feynman and Vernor Vinge (Score:5, Interesting)
This was covered in one of Feynman's semi-autobiographical books, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! [amazon.com] There's a bit where he goes to Brazil. There, in the science classes, the professor would call on the students, and a student would stand and deliver the answer right out of the textbook. This bothered Feynman somehow, so one day he's looking out the window at the sun glinting beautifully off the bay, and asks the students to point out an example of polarized light. Reflected light is polarized, but the students were unable to use their memorized knowledge. Feynman's conclusion was that the science professors weren't teaching science, but public speaking and elocution.
Vernor Vinge also covers this in Rainbows End [amazon.com]. The protagonist, a revived Pulitzer-Prize winning poet from the old days, notes that the younger folks seemed to have an inability to really synthesize knowledge and understand anything, though they could instantly look anything up through their wearable computers and talk about it.
Re:Feynman and Vernor Vinge (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not Google. (Score:2, Interesting)
If we don't know what the actual facts are, because we didn't memorize them, then how can we know that the "facts" we use are actually accurate?
This means that we might actually become stupider because we are relying on third parties to do the hard work for us.
People are naturally lazy and, this only makes it easier for them to be lazy and blame someone else when they get their facts wrong. Keep in mind, not all people fit this mold and will actually try to interpret the data they've found, but I think the majority will just become dumber because they'll be waiting for someone else to figure it out for them (think Idiocracy).
Stupid people don't leave their homes to be heard (Score:3, Interesting)
And in the same respect, I think more stupid kids are browsing 4chan, facebook, lolcats, and youtube that might otherwise be burning ants with magnifying glasses, sniffing glue, hitting their heads against walls for fun, and shooting the neighbors cat with a BB gun.
As the internet has brought a new type of democracy to information and education the world has changed. Smart people went to libraries, others went to the county fair (to quote Jeff Foxworthy). Now we all hang out together on the INTERTOOBS!!! GREAT!
It is better than it isn't.
I think the article is very short sighted, and ignorant to the way people learn and adapt with their technology. This possibly really reveals how ignorant 'smart' people are about those with lesser opportunity. I think a better perspective would be how we can see intellegence as a whole versus averages or medians. The internet has grown to include so many more people. Remember that the internet started with colleges and expanded into wealthy communities. We can now see just how poorly educated some of the country is. In the parts of the country that are cut off from technology, you will find AT LEAST as many people made up of sound bites. How many people do you know that only repeat one really bad joke, that is short, and poorly told? This was not something new that the internet created, they are just no longer naturally censored... And now they get their own website and a "Top 10" list on cracked.com
Intelligence is based on reason. (Score:3, Interesting)
Intelligence is not based on brute calculation.
What this means is, while someone might have a better memory than another person, if they don't know the difference between right and wrong because they have no ability to weigh their own actions, they'll aways be putting themselves into dumb situations no matter what they scored on their written tests and no matter what grade they got in school.
The point is, life is the true test. If you want your kids to be smart, teach them how to measure right from wrong decisions. This means you have to teach them critical thinking and how to weigh their actions against the consequences.
This is something many book smart people are not capable of doing. They might be able to calculate and do advanced math in their head, but if they lack reasoning ability, none of this will matter.
Rational choice theory/game theory is really the only kind of math that must be mastered if a person is to be successful.
Re:Not Google. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why I try to climb to the top of the interpretation food chain, enumerated as follows from low to high:
Where's the obligatory Thamus reference? (Score:3, Interesting)
This thread screams for a reference to King Thamus of ancient Egypt who once made the same arguments against the development of writing. He argued that writing would dumb humans down.
Read Plato's "The Phaedrus" for more on this.
http://www.units.muohio.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.htm [muohio.edu]
Re:Not Google. (Score:3, Interesting)
The internet is making us smarter.
Agreed. The internet is a tool, whether it makes us smarter or dumber depends on the person who's using it. Before the internet, whoever was using encyclopedias or buying People magazine (or Larry Flint's Hustler, which had astonishingly good journalistic articles, BTW), is still doing so, only more efficiently.
Among many other things, the internet allows me to get dumb little details out of my mind, such as - "Who was such and such actor in what film?" I look it up in IMDb, and just like that, that nagging, distracting little detail is fully satisfied. And then, I've lost count on how many excellent BBC documentaries I've seen on Google Video, which I wouldn't have access to otherwise. It's the proverbial Library Of Alexandria, and then some.
There's always the danger of dumbing down, of course. I've made it a personal rule to never, ever use the internets, no matter how strong the temptation, to help me solve the NYT Sunday crossword, for example.
Re:Both (Score:1, Interesting)