Summary: Is Google Making USupid?

Is Google Making us Stupid?

In a modern world driven solely by technology, it appears that almost every aspect of our daily lives now relies on some form of technological means.While reading the article “Is Google Making us stupid?” written by Nicholas Carr on the Atlantic. Made me realize how dependent we are to technology and its commodities. It is a great example of what is going on with todays society and the attachments to technology, How it's almost impossible to complete certain task without the help of our handy technological tools. But it’s what it does to us without intention that may be a cause for concern. For one, we now live in total dependency of technology, from cars, to smart phones, home computers, or even our TV’s. Today,

now more than ever, technology makes what were once difficult tasks now as simple as clicking a button, or speaking into a device. But does the fascinating digital world around us, make us lazy? Does it make us stupid? I believe that the growth of technology has negatively influenced the social interactions of today's society because it isolates individuals from reality, hinders communication, and perpetuates the concept of immediate satisfaction. Carr describes himself “I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.”(Carr Is google making us Stupid?).Not only that technology has made life so convenient for us that it’s almost scary to think of what would happen if we had to go a without our favorite gadget for an extended period of time.
With companies like Google leads the world in the technologies and having a mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”(Carr Is google making us Stupid?).

Sergey Brin and Larry Page founders of Google, created Google in September 4, 1998, and since its creation the founder of google has made it their priority to make it “the perfect search engine.”(Carr Is google making us Stupid?). The way Google works is that it ranks each search results, by using automated programs called spiders or crawlers, just like most search engines. With a large index of keywords and where those words can be found in turn determines the order Google displays results on its search engine results page, Similar to artificial intelligence. Google uses a trademarked algorithm called PageRank, which assigns each Web page a relevancy score. Giving you the fastest answer for your search from thousand of websites. With every single search done Google is learning and adapting to becoming a more efficient search engine. Page co founder of Google describes “For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence.”(Carr Is google making us Stupid?). I agree with Nicholas Carr on how he is being shortsighted as he describes himself in his essay “Maybe I’m just a worrywart. Just as there’s a tendency to glorify technological progress, there’s a counter tendency to expect the worst of every new tool or machine.”(Carr Is google making us Stupid?). The

point I want to make is that with technology making our lives easier and completing task faster. It has made humans to be more reliable on their devices. I could not imagine my college life without google or my laptop I get most of my work done without having to leave my house. Before google if you wanted to find the answers you would seek the information, go the library and check out books on the subject. You had to work hard to find the information, by going through books , taking notes and reading the book thoroughly. Making the task of learning and seeking information to take a longer process. By making my life easier, it has also made me lazy. Now when I search for information on google I usually scan through the website for key words and try to read what I think is most important and valid information. Making the process of finding my information easier and faster but not really letting the information sink in my brain and learning the material. Similar to how they described in the study of research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, how readers are just performing “a form of skimming activity” or “power browse”(Carr Is google making us Stupid?). With this style of reading is very difficult for the mind to retain information, exactly how Nicholas Carr quotes Plato’s Phaedrus “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.”(Carr Is google making us Stupid?).
Being a sword with a double sided edge technology has its positive and negative effects. With every great technological advancement comes a period of adaptation and panic. An open window of information accessible to anybody with a computer and with internet, they have the opportunity of having the world's information at their fingertips. But also have the side effect of becoming dependable on the device. As individuals we seek to make life more simple and being able to execute tasks faster.