Does Google make us stupid?

It doesn't make us stupid. It makes people impatient, for instead of waiting people want things NOW, NOW, NOW!

I don't think it makes us stupid, but it doesn't make us any smarter either. There's something to be said about doing research the old-fashioned way... digging through piles of books, having to READ them all for the information you need. I don't say I miss it that much. But for me, at least, i find it's easier to forget things if I know I can find it again really quickly by googling it.

True. I think hard work infuses what you find into your memory. Just like trauma is easily remembered. Attaching an emotion to something allows for it to be stored more vividly, hence why women are so good at remembering the bad things their boyfriends/husbands do.

We are perpetuating a lazy mind, in essence.

Stupid? No, it doesn't make us stupid. Lazy, maybe. I mean, we live in a world where every second counts, time is money. So the faster you can get information, the faster you can use it. Why stop at google? All internet speeds things along.

It doesn't make us stupid...after all, we have more information at our fingertips than ever before, and that can't be a bad thing.

Yeah....but too much information can bog you down, just like too much food.

Did anyone actually read the article in its entirety? The article is relating our dependence on the internet as a source of information to actual changes in the way we think and process information. After reading this article I started thinking about current as an example of internet technology affecting us. Do people actually follow the links in a story and read the article it was clipped from or do they simply read the snippet and move on? From the comments left by other users I've deduced that a large portion of the commenters don't actually follow links. Current as a medium for information can be very valuable, but is it changing the way we process information?


"The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive."

Spell check on microsoft word makes me stupid, not google....I just wait for those squiggly red lines to tell me the error of my ways...

Sad thing is, I won the 8th grade spelling bee...*sigh*

LOL

I'm with you on that Meaghan. I never raelized how many words I mispelled. Thank goodness for the squiggles. Wait a second...

I've been jokingly referring to the internet as my "auxiliary brain" for years - but in many ways it is true. I think there are a lot of small facts I let slip out of memory since I know that I can just look them up now, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

it doesn't make people stupid for using different methods of looking up the same information.

i do agree that our generation has a "give it to me now" attitude, but Google did not create that, it just fulfills it.

Technology is what made us impatient. The internet and sites like google are what created a generation of non-linear thinkers. We no longer have to follow steps and read through books to find what we need to, we can simply wikipedia it. Pretty cool in some senses but damn are we ever lazy....

When did digging through books and library shevles qualify as making us intelligent? Intelligence should be seen in the ability to cut out excess time in our research.

In the immortal words of Al Bundy "it's not the dress that makes you look fat, it's the fat that makes you look fat."

I'm thinking it's the stupid that makes people stupid. That and all the seat belt and helmet laws have messed up natural selection.

No. Man is only as powerful as his tools. Google made the internet manageable so it can be the most valuable tool available to mankind.

That is a really long article!!!

I doubt even half of the people commenting here have read it. (I know I haven't, but I will.)

I will say that though I can't speculate on the actual effect Google has had on the human brain, I can see how Google could be accused spreading stupidity. For people who once settled on ignorance and a simple "I don't know" or "I don't care" to answer tough questions, there are now about as many sites offering "information" as there are offering reliable facts. Many people stumble upon false information and accept it without questioning the source, or doing much to verify it.

Worst of all, some of that junk can end up on Current.com and get voted all the way up to television by a bunch of dummies who don't read articles in the first place.

:(

So intelligence is defined as taking longer to find out the answer?

Everyone should probably read the article rather than making broad assumptions based on the title and a paragraph. Funny thing is you are actually proving the point he is trying to make in the article.

instant gratification

I definitely have mixed feelings after reading this. We can and do learn a lot from being able to search all the world's questions over the internet, but then again we sometimes lose our skills to do problem solving for ourselves; basically we start to depend on it and take it for granted.

Im a slave for you, Atlantic.
-
except for that one Spears cover. ew.

I did read the whole article and the difference between the artificial intellience of HAL and what people can do with the information that Google stores is in the connections people can make with that info available.

Having access to Google doesn't relieve people of learning the skills of critical thinking it enhances them by having access to more of the raw data necessary for using those skills.

The point being that HAL had all the info but not the skills,if he did then he could've resolved the paradox of being lied to by the people who programmed him and not gone off into a paraniod rage.

If people do the same thing and just use Google to find info without further trying to find the connections that make the info relevant, provable and analysed to make sure it's comprehesible than it's no better than being programmed by it like AI.

There are always problems that have not been solved. Simply having the internet is not a solution. But to come up with the sophisticated argument the author has devised is not something that Google can do (yet).

I don't like the title of this article, it was obviously chosen to grab attention. Why not pay attention to, I don't know, the proceedings going on today in the Senate?

If people can reign in the "go go go impatient" attitude that a tool like google creates over time then they would be nothing but more productive in the end. If every answer is only 3 clicks away doesn't that mean that you can accomplish that much more all the more quickly? I would call it a revolution in information processing more so than a dumb down affect. As for the whole "hard work ingrains lessons in the brain..." sure, but at the same time if you know how to get back to that answer in the same 3 clicks or less than you are essentially using the massive info database called the "internet" as an extension of your brain. Life long partners do it all the time. The wife remembers what time the kids need picked up (at least traditionally) and the husband remembers how and where to find the the necessary tools to fix the garbage disposal. They've done studies on this but I'm straight up to "Brain Lazy" to look it up!! Ha! ..... However to be truthful and less quixotic I couldn't identify more with the article. Concentration is fading fast in the generation that straddles pre-google and google... god only knows if the exclusively google generation will even know what concentration is.

Hardly. It's exactly the opposite. This is not only about Google. It's about the whole internet. If anything the internet has made us smarter. Information is no longer bound to books, schooling, or the finantialy inclined. This is only the beggining of creating an information superhighway. We can now acess what knowlege we need, when we need it, and sharing what we know and how we feel with eachother. The internet has shrunk the world, but expanded our minds.

if searching for info we do not currently know, makes us dumb using a fast way to gain the knowledge then I am dumb.

I think Google is a over used search engine. Period. If you can't find something with out it....you are stupid.

On the one hand the article makes a good point about how we will be able to retain less depth of information in exchange for a more general knowledge. This is what our world is moving towards, less specialization more generalization. Most of what I might want but not need to know is already general knowledge. Now I don't have to remember that characters names on a TV show instead I can remember where I put my keys, or more importantly what Kant's categorical imperative is. The knowledge I don't retain now, might not be knowledge I need at all.

Technology consistently makes tedious tasks more easy to do. The research paper that used to take me weeks, can now be done in a couple of days. Now, on to the important things...like Guitar Hero.

i think it expands our ability to earn more at the click of a mouse. info that was unavailable to most is now at everyone's finger tips...i don't see how you can even argue this is making us stupider!

Google doesn't make a person stupid. Stupidity makes you stupid

Did you delete my response?

As a matter of fact, when searching in a search box. You still have to ask it an educated question.
So yes, it makes us smarter by proxy.

You guys get that this article is not really about Google, right? Read it! It's pretty thought-provoking.

just like herb....google doesn't make you stupid...stupid makes you stupid

I want my information now and free, and I want a lot of it.