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Is Google making us more stoopid?

19 September 2009

At a recent pub quiz, I was diligently completing my answer sheet with various trivia tidbits when I noticed a rival team peeking surreptitiously under their table at their mobiles. In a scene worthy of an amateur production of Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, I denounced my cheating rivals. If they didn’t know who won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1992 without looking it up on their internet mobile, then they shouldn’t be taking part in a pub quiz (the answer is Emma Thompson by the way).

Brian Cathcart, a journalism professor at Kingston, openly wonders whether Google is making the attainment of general knowledge a thing of the past. “The average student … seems not to value general knowledge,” Cathcart notes. “If asked a factual question, they will usually click on a search engine without a second thought. Actually knowing the fact, committing it to memory, does not seem to be a consideration.” While Google may give us the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, it seems to Cathcart that the fingertips (and not the mind) is where information may be destined to stay.

Google is part of a long line of technology that helps attain knowledge – papyrus, the abacus, the calculator and now search engines. While these tools can greatly assist people in saving time to obtain or save knowledge, there is always the risk that the tool will become a crutch. While some people can easily do sums in their heads, there are others who will spend ten minutes looking through cluttered desks and drawers in search of their trusty calculator.

So does Google make us lazier and ‘stupider’? The answer may be that Google merely amplifies one’s values of knowledge. For those people who value quick fix answer only to forget it moments later – perhaps the answer is yes, Google can make one lazier. However, for those people who are curious about the world who want to consume from the smorgasbord of knowledge and then weave that knowledge into their lives, then Google is in fact a well-learned tutor.

Just make sure to turn Google off on your mobiles if you see me at your pub quiz.

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