Is Google Making Us Stupid?

            Here I am, about to write a post on how much the internet is distracting us from the real world and our  intelligence, as myself, and probably you reading this, are already distracted by the limitless utopia referred to as the internet. Before the invention of the internet, in order to conduct research or to just simply find out the answer to a meaningless question, it could take hours, if not days. Now that we have search engines such as Google, this process turns into one that could take just minutes. However, is this beneficial to our brains and ourselves?

            I would argue both yes and no. Not only are we equipped with information at our fingertips, it’s also distracting us from the reality of our own intelligence. When looking at online documents, articles, blogs, etc. we tend not to actually read what is written. As Nicholas Carr put it, “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.”

Issues:

• A problem that has slowly come to light with this topic, is that humans and their ability to think and use their brains is becoming an outdated computer that essentially needs a faster “processor and hard drive.”

•  It’s becoming more and more aware that in order to make money off the internet and to have an economic interest in the internet, you need to distract users from what they are there to do.

• Google’s view on their business organization it that they need to organize the information that’s floating around in the world and make it readily accessible to the people. They want to predict the results you want and then promptly give them to you. This all leading to the idea that this will all lead to more productive thinkers.

• How does this all relate to the business world? We can’t just hop onto our computers anticipating buying a product from a certain company because the internet evidently distracts us from our initial goal. Thus leading the buyer shutting down their computer just having bought the same item off of the original business’s competitor’s site.