A Pew Research Center survey in response to Nicholas Carr's article Is Google Making us Stupid? I've noticed for myself that I seem to more easily filter information in the "I don't really have to remember this; I can easily look it up if I have to; I'll just try to remember a trigger word" category. Do you find that the internet, and search engines like Google in particular, has made you more or less knowledgeable?

Definitely, undeniable more knowledgeable.

Being already smart has a lot to do with it.

A moron in a library will still be a moron.

Quote: A moron in a library will still be a moron.

Excellent comparison!


I thought his article was missing quite a bit when it first came out. Plus, it has a bad title. On its face, search engines don't make anybody stupid. [grin]

His point was that reliance on a search engine reduces individual cognition, the ability to think for yourself. The article ignores the effects of distributed cognition ("group think"), collective intellect ("access to experts") and collective memory ("I can learn the generals and delay the specifics until needed").

Being able to look up nearly anything, at any time, with no delay, in an incredibly powerful tool.

For people who use it to augment their knowledge and abilities, it can be a powerful enabler. They can focus on the things they need and disregard the rest.

For people who turn off their brain and rely on others to do their work... well, there have always been lazy people, cheaters, bums, and so on.

This is actually something I've been thinking about lately. I've noticed that I tend to discard information that is easily retrievable at a moment's notice, whereas my mother tends to rely on having someone knowledgeable to ask for information until she learns it herself. I often find myself telling her to google it instead of bothering me for it, and even sometimes I end up googling it for her.

It's interesting to see our different ways of obtaining information between my mother and I, even if a bit frustrating. There are drawbacks to both, and advantages to both. An advantage to hers is that she is better able to maintain a social network, as her desire to seek information propels her to keep in contact with knowledgeable people. To some extent this is true for me as well, but not nearly to the same degree.

I think the real question is not whether "google is making people stupid", but what they're actually defining "stupid" to be. I think the main mistake someone would make is confusing stupidity with ignorance. Personally, I think being ignorant is not a problem until you based a decision on that ignorance, knowingly or not. If someone is ignorant about something, and they know it, and rectify that problem only when necessary, someone else might think they were stupid because they didn't know it, but what if it never became necessary to know?

As far as the original article is concerned, I'm amused at the length at which the author chooses tell us of his lack of attention span. Something doesn't quite add up there, unless he wrote in spastic jerks over a period of time. (On second thought...)

However, I'm insulted by his sloppy allusion that the effect the internet is having on people is Taylorism. Taylorism is unbending mechanical optimization which has nothing to do with thought once the optimal path has been found. As an example of this, he points to programmers finding optimal algorithms. Am I really supposed to just let it fly that he didn't address how people are involved in this supposed Taylorism being inflicted by the internet? It really gets my goat how wrong his comparisons are, and how he repeats them with key words so that people without a clue will have it hammered in. Taylorism isn't even proper science to begin with!

Micromanagers inflict Taylorism on other people; The internet is the internet, and what you do with it is what affects you. If you're losing your ability to focus, it's probably because you haven't practiced in a while. If you desire to keep that ability, practice it.

By the time I finished the article, the biggest thought I had in my head was whether the 80/20 rule (or some variation?) applies to undistilled writing, whether I would have been better off performing to the author's standards, and whether perhaps in this case it was more like 20/80.

The main (only, really) effect that I've noticed is that Google's existence makes it more likely for a question in a casual internet conversation to be answered with a snide LGMTFY link, "lrn2google" etc. While it's true that the information is "right there", people seem to be forgetting the social purpose of asking each other about trivial things.

Quote: Original post by frob

Quote: A moron in a library will still be a moron.

Excellent comparison!


I thought his article was missing quite a bit when it first came out. Plus, it has a bad title. On its face, search engines don't make anybody stupid. [grin]

His point was that reliance on a search engine reduces individual cognition, the ability to think for yourself. The article ignores the effects of distributed cognition ("group think"), collective intellect ("access to experts") and collective memory ("I can learn the generals and delay the specifics until needed").

Being able to look up nearly anything, at any time, with no delay, in an incredibly powerful tool.

For people who use it to augment their knowledge and abilities, it can be a powerful enabler. They can focus on the things they need and disregard the rest.

For people who turn off their brain and rely on others to do their work... well, there have always been lazy people, cheaters, bums, and so on.

Yeah this is nothing new.
I think Russell said it best:
"Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so": Bertrand Russell

We get our fair share of these people on the forums everyday asking the same questions over and simple ones that a Google search would immediately answer.
Or so you would think -- but having seen the difficulty others have using Google, I sometimes get creeped out at how well Google seems to read my mind whenever I search for something because it is almost always spot on :)

I think Google is doing the exact opposite.

In the past if there was something I wanted to know about that was just a passing interest and there was no one around who knew about that subject I would have just shrugged my shoulders and not really bothered as it was not vital that I got that information.

Now, any passing interest I have I can get as much information on that subject as I want. This has massively broadend my knowledge on everything from Maths to History. I think now people are much more likely to follow through with "Why does that happen..." style questions than they were in the past.

Research skills are important and google provides a means to enact that research. What makes us stupid is forums wherein you can just post a question and get your answer back without engaging in thought or logic to understand and solve your problem. Handing answers to people on a plate makes them stupid.

Quote: Original post by Cromulent
In the past if there was something I wanted to know about that was just a passing interest and there was no one around who knew about that subject I would have just shrugged my shoulders and not really bothered as it was not vital that I got that information.

Quote: Original post by evolutional
Research skills are important and google provides a means to enact that research. What makes us stupid is forums wherein you can just post a question and get your answer back without engaging in thought or logic to understand and solve your problem. Handing answers to people on a plate makes them stupid.

This basically; I know more about subjects I never would have come in contact with without google, wikipedia or the internet at large. Yet, at the same time it seems more people are just asking for answers... although that could just be selection bias and an increase in people I'm exposed to at work.

Either way; I still do my own research, buy books and remember things in the same way I did before, the only difference is now when I'm in the pub and someone says 'hey, what do you know about X?' I can whip out my phone and google X [grin]

And none of the concentration effects have anything to do with "intelligence" or "stupid" (except maybe "stupid" definition 3).

The ability to look up information allows a much wider range of problems to be solvable giving any particular brain working on them. I'd bet money that any one of us with an internet connection and a favorite programming language could get every single problem right on an IQ test, or other similar general knowledge test. Does that say something bad about general knowledge tests, or does it mean that large knowledge bases and a python interpreter greater improve someone's intelligence over some domains?

intelligence: noun (1) the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. (2) a person with this ability.
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stupid: adjective (1) lacking intelligence or common sense. (3) dazed and unable to think clearly.
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