Is Google Making Us Stoopid?

I definitely feel like Wiki has changed the way I read. When I read a hard-copy book or periodical rather than a web article, I now find that when I stumble upon a new word I've never read before, I wish it was "clickable" so I could find out its definition.

I think the internet as a whole does this to us... we want everything and we want it now! I first found this, way back in 2001, when I got my very first computer. I was on dial-up, at a penny a minute, and wanted to do everything as quickly as possible so as not to have a huge phone bill. I would skim forums, reply fast, without checking, and then see loads of typos lol. It's kind of like ADD, isn't it.
I'm still on dial up, it's a set monthly rate now for 24/7, but I still feel as though I need to do everything in nano seconds instead of enjoying and actually thinking about stuff before I write it on the net.

Until having the net, I would spend many hours a day learning the French language, I was getting really good at it too; I'd even bought books on street/slang language; I wanted to be the same there as here, didn't I Being too involved in the forums of another site and finding many friends, I couldn't settle down into taking my time over non-internet things for a couple of years. I haven't done any of my French for years because of this, I just can't seem to give myself the discipline anymore. I would have been fluent by now if I hadn't decided to go online.

However, saying all that, I might have skipped on my French studies, but I do spend hours disciplining myself with my writing. I'm on my fourth novel since 2004, the last two years have produced three of them, so not all is lost I suppose. I guess we just to get our priorities into perspective.


Elodie

I skimmed through the OP.

I cannot do backstory or descriptive narrative anymore. I need pace and page-turners. Rarely do I read a novel that I won't skim in parts. And I delete more emails at work than I read to the end.

But, I cannot blame the internet on its lonesome here. Generally, we tend to cram more into life than ever before. Google and yahoo etc facilitate the pace we want.

JJ

Actually I do read more from the net but I also have a far wider venue of resources and reference to look at, and with ebooks I can 'restock' the paper library I had to leave back in the States.

I do hit the English corner in the local libraries here and I've read stuff I'd not normally look at but for a hunger to have English visually with me.

Good article. Very thought provoking.

Speaking for myself, a couple of points:

1) I've always been a skimmer, long before there was an internet. It's probably why I ultimately prefer non-fiction over fiction.
2) Personally, I am more concerned with the lack of math skills, thanks to calculators and computers, that is continually evidencing itself. And I mean among adults, not children. Children still learn math, but as they grow older and become adults, there's nothing reinforcing what they learned.
3) I don't let my kids use google for reports as a matter of course. I make them go to the encyclopedia first.

robeiae said:

3) I don't let my kids use google for reports as a matter of course. I make them go to the encyclopedia first.

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That's interesting.

I don't have kids, but if I had them, I'd encourage google over encyclopedia, anytime. That, or wikipedia.

What I think is happening with the internet is that we're going from a trust/loyalty-base to a content-evaluation base. Before the internet, there was a limit to how many sources you could afford. (How many different encyclopedias could you afford? How much space do you have to store good ones?) That meant you'd have to check the quality of the publication, integrity of the editors etc. before making a commitment. Your critical faculty was more effective if directed towards sources. You chose a source you trust, and then you stick with it.

Now, with the web, the limit isn't storage or money; the limit is "time". Now, instead of sticking to your favourites, you have the option of comparing sources. You focus on content, wonder what's plausible, see what people leave out... (If I research something on the web, even if it's non-consequential, I usually have at least three tabs open, and I jump back and forth between them.)

Now, the dangers of both methods are different.

Traditional method: You're turning into your master's blood hound. You'll be thorough in tracking down the info you want. And when you have it it's yours.

New method: You're turning into a magpie. If it glitters, you grab it. You end up with a hoard and you may even have a diamond or you two, but you don't know and you don't care, as long as it glitters.

The dangers of the new method are more visible, simply because people are used to the old dangers.

Google isn't making us stupid. If anything, it's tripping up the uncritical in visible ways. It's easy to blame the technology, if you buy the resource-loyalty system in the first place.

The ideal information gatherer will optimise time, money and storage space, by effective combination of all resources available. What you're favouring will probably depnd on your personality structure.

I've always been "spread wide and thin", and I never really went "deep". The internet didn't change anything, but it really improved my research capabilities. I'm actually working more effectively with the internet than I ever did in a library (where I wasted too much time running around between shelves). Today, I prefer the web for targeted research, but I still prefer libraries for browsing (which is interesting, since the article suggests it should be the other way round, hehe).

So, to return to the original point, if I had kids, I'd encourage them to google for the info they need, but I'd discourage them taking the first thing they like. I'd encourage them to compare (and track) sources, which I think is an important skill and easier than ever to get started on. (Of course, it would depend on my kids, too. It's just a personal preference, and personal preferences are quite easy to impress on imaginary kids. )

So now I'm curious why you're favouring the encyclopedia over google. And which one(s) you favour over google. And if there are any you'd rather avoid. How about wikipedia? Anything you care to communicate, really. (I shouldn't have to say this, but this is the web: I'm not tripping you up here, or arguing for my position. Your remark really piqued my curiosity.)

ColoradoGuy said:

Or perhaps a Hedgehog vs a Fox.

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Or, medically, Hunters and Farmers.

I don't have kids, but if I had them, I'd encourage google over encyclopedia, anytime. That, or wikipedia.

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FOr starters, why would you prefer a website that anyone can edit and therefore can't be trusted as a source?

Let me tell you why I would make my kids, if I had them, use the library and encyclopedias.

When I was in highschool I had to write a research paper mainly to learn how to write research papers. They wanted us to go to the library and take 3x5 cards, and look things up in books and encyclodedias, make notes and cite the sources. I scoffed. It was, after all, the 1990's! I went to the library and researched, but instead of MAKING NOTES, I PHOTO COPIED my references. I got an A on my paper.

Now let me tell you the problem with my method: I don't remember my paper. I remember the subject, the title, but I don't remember the content.

I guarantee you if I wrote down all those notes instead of copying them with a photo copier, I would still have a basic grasp and understanding of the subject that paper was on today, which in my mind is far more imporatant than the A I rec'd at the time.

Google just makes that phenomenon worse.

Also Rob said: 3) I don't let my kids use google for reports as a matter of course. I make them go to the encyclopedia first.

TO me that reads as he makes them start with encyclopedias- and possibly they can use google later if they can't find enough info.

sassandgroove said:

Also Rob said: 3) I don't let my kids use google for reports as a matter of course. I make them go to the encyclopedia first.

TO me that reads as he makes them start with encyclopedias- and possibly they can use google later if they can't find enough info.

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Right.

And the index card method is the only way to go for research papers. What we're seeing today--in academia--is a rise in plagiarism because of "cut and paste"-itis.

sassandgroove said:

FOr starters, why would you prefer a website that anyone can edit and therefore can't be trusted as a source?

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It's a classic idealist discussion: do you want something everyone can contribute "knowledge" toward, or have one knowledge tome with editorial control from a single source.

There's a reason why Wikipedia lists its sources at the bottoms of its entries -- so you can cross check the credibility of the knowledge you're gathering. I like that.

Information, like tomatoes, is currently in a buyer beware market. It always has been. Use wisely.

Oh I refer to Wiki, I just wouldn't use it as my only source. Maybe a starting point, or as one of many.

We used it to get song listings for tv shows my husband likes to make his own soundtracks from Itunes.

I wouldn't let my kid use it [exclusivly] for a report and if I did I would make them check the sources.

sassandgroove said:

FOr starters, why would you prefer a website that anyone can edit and therefore can't be trusted as a source?

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

In my opinion, the internet has improved our lives beyond measure, and any "downsides" are just adjustments that we're making as a culture. The method of receiving information cannot in itself be inherently bad; we simply need to learn the best methods for processing information. As I see it, the most important thing for current and future generations is to learn DISCERNMENT.

In the past, if something was written in a nonfiction book - well, gosh, it must be true. I can use that to write my paper. Nevermind that being in a book isn't a measure of truth or accuracy - but the fact is that by the time a book has been published it's been subject to at least some sort of peer review.

Now we have the internet, where anyone can post anything they like. There's an upside and a downside to this. The downside is that anyone can post anything they like. The upside is... that anyone can post anything they like! Information is freer, it's more comprehensive, and you have dozens of ways to get to it. This is an amazing opportunity, a huge step forward particularly for places in the world where you normally wouldn't have access to libraries. For instance, the internet (even in it s censored form) was invaluable to me when I was teaching English in China.

But the trick becomes separating the wheat from the chaff. I'm particularly good at doing this - I've always had a very good sense of when something is true or false or being fudged. I think in the future, along with the study of rhetoric and basic scholarship, we need to develop methods for teaching students how to determine if something is legit. Some people have an inherent sense of this, but others don't, and that's where the problems occur.

As for the other issue of whether we've all got literary ADD, I don't believe it. I grew up using the internet and I'm equally happy browsing articles online or curling up on the couch with an 18th century classic. The fact that the internet gives us access to LOADS more information means that we have to learn to filter - often by skimming - so that we don't spend our whole lives in front of a screen. As a skill, skimming is INCREDIBLY useful. It's a skill I had to teach to my EFL students - so they didn't spend days trying to crawl through some text that wasn't useful to them.

Less info available = more time to spend looking at info in detail.
More info available = less time to spend poring over details.

Me, I prefer knowledge to ignorance.

JoNightshade said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

In my opinion, the internet has improved our lives beyond measure, and any "downsides" are just adjustments that we're making as a culture. The method of receiving information cannot in itself be inherently bad; we simply need to learn the best methods for processing information. As I see it, the most important thing for current and future generations is to learn DISCERNMENT.

In the past, if something was written in a nonfiction book - well, gosh, it must be true. I can use that to write my paper. Nevermind that being in a book isn't a measure of truth or accuracy - but the fact is that by the time a book has been published it's been subject to at least some sort of peer review.

Now we have the internet, where anyone can post anything they like. There's an upside and a downside to this. The downside is that anyone can post anything they like. The upside is... that anyone can post anything they like! Information is freer, it's more comprehensive, and you have dozens of ways to get to it. This is an amazing opportunity, a huge step forward particularly for places in the world where you normally wouldn't have access to libraries. For instance, the internet (even in it s censored form) was invaluable to me when I was teaching English in China.

But the trick becomes separating the wheat from the chaff. I'm particularly good at doing this - I've always had a very good sense of when something is true or false or being fudged. I think in the future, along with the study of rhetoric and basic scholarship, we need to develop methods for teaching students how to determine if something is legit. Some people have an inherent sense of this, but others don't, and that's where the problems occur.

As for the other issue of whether we've all got literary ADD, I don't believe it. I grew up using the internet and I'm equally happy browsing articles online or curling up on the couch with an 18th century classic. The fact that the internet gives us access to LOADS more information means that we have to learn to filter - often by skimming - so that we don't spend our whole lives in front of a screen. As a skill, skimming is INCREDIBLY useful. It's a skill I had to teach to my EFL students - so they didn't spend days trying to crawl through some text that wasn't useful to them.

Less info available = more time to spend looking at info in detail.
More info available = less time to spend poring over details.

Me, I prefer knowledge to ignorance.

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I have to agree. Sure, teachers make it out like every source on the internet is unreliable, and wikipedia is written by evil teenage boys out to dupe us all, but by and large that's not true. It's generally easy to cross-check information, and I've found an awful lot of great, valuable information through ebooks and other resources that would have been much harder to find in a physical library.

Of course, I'm still fully able to research the old-fashioned way. I've never used the internet primarily in any of the four research papers I've written (more to come next year, I'm sure). Wikipedia is generally a great jumping-off point, and right after skimming the article for basic info, I jump down to the outside sources...these usually take me to great information, not to mention books that I can order from my library. Btw, it's totally possible to take notes with index cards using websites as a source.

Jo makes a great, easily-overlooked point. With so much information available, different skills are stressed in gathering knowledge. This is not inherently bad. Frankly, I think the ability to effectively search online is an incredibly important skill, and many people aren't half as good at it as you might expect...see yahooanswers.com for proof of this. I would imagine you'd try google to the nth degree before asking "what happens when you cut a brain in half", but it seems most people are simply too lazy to do this and would rather ask their invisible internet compatriots.

And, like many others who can barely remember a day without the internet...I am plenty good at book-readin'.

Interesting replies; I'll get to them once I have the time to read them in depth. Basically, I tend to be with Jo, here. Nobody said anything about "only source", or "accept the first best thing". And you're not going to argue that the internet hasn't made professional research easier. Of course, you're not going to google "Spring in Fialta"; you're in a different institutional context and have different resources at your disposal.

I hope to be back with a more interesting post, soon.

Thanks to Google, I can pretend to be literate.

Google, I salute you.

sassandgroove said:

FOr starters, why would you prefer a website that anyone can edit and therefore can't be trusted as a source?
<snip>

Also Rob said: 3) I don't let my kids use google for reports as a matter of course. I make them go to the encyclopedia first.

TO me that reads as he makes them start with encyclopedias- and possibly they can use google later if they can't find enough info.

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We stopped using encyclopedias cold turkey once there was google. (We still have a 1990s Britannica in the shelves, ages since we used it.)

1) The main reason is that the info in the encyclopedias is dated. By the time the data is collected, the article written and vetted, the thing printed and distributed, it's at least 2-3 years old, and often older.

2) The information is more shallow. On google, on practically any topic you can go a lot deeper than you could in the Brittanica. Of course you could keep searching related topics, but it was cumbersome. It wasn't unusual for us to have half a dozen volumes open on the floor after an hour's research.

3) It's more practical. I can make a collection of useful-looking articles in a folder, and evaluate them later. By having them all there, it makes contradictions and resonances show up more easily.

4) It's a useful tool in teaching someone how to evaluate the source of the information. Since anyone can sling anything on the Net, any piece of data comes with a subjective "truth probability." It's real life, writ large, since we all get information from hundreds, if not thousands, of sources.

That's why we don't do encyclopedias any more...

'm learning how relatively dumb I am. The more I learn, the more I find there is to learn. I just keep getting dumber and dumber.

I remember when I was younger. I would be using the encyclopedia or the dictionary for some school work. And many times, unrelated articles and definitions would catch my eye. So I'd read them. Wonderful tangents.

The same thing happens to me when I use the internet...except all the tangents seem a great deal more superficial, imo.

Per Sass's earlier comments and the article that started this, I fear no one is learning much of anything, just cherry-picking bits they need.

Also, I think on the internet, presentation--always a factor--has become even more important. We assume legitimacy when the graphics and links are well done. We can't help it.

robeiae said:

I remember when I was younger. I would be using the encyclopedia or the dictionary for some school work. And many times, unrelated articles and definitions would catch my eye. So I'd read them. Wonderful tangents.

The same thing happens to me when I use the internet...except all the tangents seem a great deal more superficial, imo.

Per Sass's earlier comments and the article that started this, I fear no one is learning much of anything, just cherry-picking bits they need.

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I don't know to what extent we can claim this is a new phenomenon. When I find an interesting tangent, I follow it til I can follow it no more. I'll go through seven Google search result pages and maybe a dozen related Wikipedia pages before I'm satisfied. For the moment. I bet twenty years ago, I would have been exactly the same...but it might have been harder for me to pursue these tangents.

Others, however, are unlike me (or, presumably, you). They probably would have cherry-picked before the internet, too. It's just a personality thing.

Also, I think on the internet, presentation--always a factor--has become even more important. We assume legitimacy when the graphics and links are well done. We can't help it.

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I don't know about this. Although often those who go to great lengths to ensure their websites are comprehensive often also, if not aesthetically pleasing, at least unobtrusive, some very useful sites are also the ones with an impressionist painting repeated over and over in the background with unintelligible font over it. The sites where you have to highlight all to read the text. And some of the most disappointing sites are the well-organized, easy-to-read ones.

I think it's a valuable skill to have, the skill of discernment. I've certainly picked it up--I know to look for the references on websites, I know to check multiple sources to see if the facts are consistent. It's a skill not necessarily stressed as much a few decades ago, but it's very important now. Really, there should be tests on credibility-discernment in elementary school, along with all the other basic tools they teach.

Not everything in a book is accurate. Like Keyan mentioned, encyclopedias simply aren't the best place to search for information because of the time required to update them. The set we had at my house for a long time was from the seventies. The sets at my schools were about my own age. It's the same reason teachers often supplement textbook material with material printed from websites. The information is more current.

re http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Okay, I finally took the time to read the article, rather than jumping to, Oh, we're talking about lots of info available via google, blah, blah.

I used to read mainly non-fiction, and I would scribble in the margins, and put little flags on pages, or write page numbers on the fly leaf. Nice dense books with sufficiently difficult material that could engage me for a couple of weeks at least. I haven't read any such books in years, and like the author of the article, I think internet reading has been partly responsible for the change. (Aging could be another factor.)

As I read online now, just the small effort of moving from mouse to keyboard is inhibiting, because I lose my train of thought. I have word pad open at all times for making notes, but my notes and the document I want to refer to don't go together without effort. (Maybe a program like evernote would help.) Mainly though, the ease of reading with a pencil in my hand with which to mark text as I go is just incomparably more natural. I don't keep a pencil in hand while I mouse, so that too inhibits me from writing.

Paging or scrolling the screen is disorienting as compared to flipping a page. If I do stop to think for a moment, I may lose where I was, as compared to remembering the location relative to my finger placement with a book, which also is just more natural.

Then there's the visual strain. I could probably have the best screen in the world and still not be as comfortable as with a book. And, other physical comforts, like not having a $1000 chair and adjustable keyboard height.

All these little things make for a less interactive, less engaged and less patient experience.

Oh, and things that blink should die. They are by far the most insane thing imaginable to put on a page of text. You who put them in your signatures? Oh, man -- get a clue!

One more thing: if I'm going through a news site and end up loading a billion bytes of ads along with two paragraphs of text, I'm going to be in a mood for a long while. I don't know until I click what I'm getting; it's like gambling . . . and that's an interesting bit of psychology to add to the mix right there.

Danger Jane said:

I don't know to what extent we can claim this is a new phenomenon. When I find an interesting tangent, I follow it til I can follow it no more. I'll go through seven Google search result pages and maybe a dozen related Wikipedia pages before I'm satisfied. For the moment. I bet twenty years ago, I would have been exactly the same...but it might have been harder for me to pursue these tangents.

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New? Not at all. But it's the direction of tangents I'm talking about. Speaking from personal experience, I'm amazed at the inane articles I end up following links to.

I don't know about this. Although often those who go to great lengths to ensure their websites are comprehensive often also, if not aesthetically pleasing, at least unobtrusive, some very useful sites are also the ones with an impressionist painting repeated over and over in the background with unintelligible font over it. The sites where you have to highlight all to read the text. And some of the most disappointing sites are the well-organized, easy-to-read ones.

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Yeah, that exactly right. But which one gets the most hits? YOU may not assume the nicer one is the more truthful one, but many do. And even so, I think we are all predisposed to see order and ease of navigation as indicative of more legitimacy. We have to consciously choose to look beyond that.

I think it's a valuable skill to have, the skill of discernment. I've certainly picked it up--I know to look for the references on websites, I know to check multiple sources to see if the facts are consistent. It's a skill not necessarily stressed as much a few decades ago, but it's very important now. Really, there should be tests on credibility-discernment in elementary school, along with all the other basic tools they teach.

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Absolutely. I agree.

Not everything in a book is accurate. Like Keyan mentioned, encyclopedias simply aren't the best place to search for information because of the time required to update them. The set we had at my house for a long time was from the seventies. The sets at my schools were about my own age. It's the same reason teachers often supplement textbook material with material printed from websites. The information is more current.

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Current info is great, but as Keyan also noted, material in printed form has at least been vetted.

And it really depends on the type and extent of information you are looking for.

robeiae said:

I remember when I was younger. I would be using the encyclopedia or the dictionary for some school work. And many times, unrelated articles and definitions would catch my eye. So I'd read them. Wonderful tangents.

The same thing happens to me when I use the internet...except all the tangents seem a great deal more superficial, imo.

Click to expand...

This is my biggest beef with the internet research vs. good ol' fashioned book-learning / interviewing people. There's a lot of great info to skim, but you have to hunt through a lot of shallow duplicates on the subject matter to discover anything with real depth.

Otherwise, I love the web.