Image Source: http://theamericangenius.com/tech-news/chatbot-google-is-advancing-artificial-intelligence-with-latest-invention/
Google is most definitely not making us stupid as Nicholas Carr argues in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” which was published in The Atlantic. Carr’s argument at its most basic level is that digital texts have altered the way our brains work, that these online texts have shortened our concentration and our attention span, and that due to the internet (yes, you Google) and the instant access to information that it provides, we are losing the ability to deeply think for ourselves. In his article “Yes, People Still Read, but Now It’s Social,” Steven Johnson responds to Carr’s concern that the internet is having a negative effect on us. Johnson allows that the multi-tasking that comes along with constant access to the internet does have a slight negative effect on our attention span, but he asserts that this slight loss of attention is totally worth the greater amount of things we are able to accomplish on a daily basis thanks to the internet and multi-tasking. From my experience, I side with Johnson’s argument that the benefits that come with the growing importance of internet and digital texts in our daily lives outweigh the miniscule, negative effects that appear to tag along. One particular example from my own life that illustrates the benefit that digital texts provide for daily life is my knowledge of cooking, almost 100% of which I have gained from Googling various recipes online. Thanks to the information on cooking available through digital texts I consider myself to have a fairly decent set of culinary skills. My grandfather on the other hand, who grew up in Carr’s fantasy world without internet where all reading was done in books, can make a bowl of cereal - and that’s about as far as his culinary skills go. I’ll allow that changing gender norms between generations most likely has something to do with this difference between me and my grandfather’s knowledge on cooking, as I live in a time in which men are allowed to know how to cook a meal without losing their man-card. Yet, regardless of these gender norms, there is no way I would have had all the knowledge I do about cooking without the internet. In a world without internet when faced with the decision to either go to a restaurant or drive to a bookstore, buy a cookbook, and cook my own meal, I would probably forego cooking altogether and just eat out. Not to mention, I probably wouldn’t have the initial desire to cook without having “10 Wonderful Ways to Cook Chicken Tonight” pop up while scrolling through Facebook. My argument on digital texts and whether or not they are making us stupid is this: Digital texts and the internet provide us with instantaneous access to infinite information, which cannot be a bad thing_. It is a natural law that everything, humans included will take the path of least resistance. If that means we can gain knowledge instantly be entering a question into the Google search bar instead of taking hours to track down a book and look something up, then we will take the easy, instantaneous option - it’s human nature and that is what makes humans so great; it’s why we continue to progress as a species. The other night I was found myself in a conversation with a guy who was one of the top computer programmers for a healthcare company based in Nashville. He made an ungodly amount of money and seemed to love his job so I asked him how he learned his trade and got to where he is. His response? Google and YouTube. He didn’t go to graduate school and read countless books to master his programming skills; he learned everything through watching countless YouTube tutorials. Google has certainly not made this particular computer programmer stupid... he is a clear example of how Google is making younger generations more and more intelligent. |
Ryland CloseRyland is a Junior at Belmont University studying English, Pre-Law, and Music Business. Archives
April 2016
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