No Need to Think … Go Ask Google!
By Danny Davis on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007A couple of days ago, I was having a conversation with a buddy of mine about how weird it feels to go on a trip where there is no internet access. These, of course, are generally trips to see family or friends that put you in a location where getting online is usually not impossible, but a at least a chore, so you wind up doing without for some period of time. My buddy and I were joking about how it changes the dynamic of conversations, because you can’t just go “Google” something to help resolve a friendly debate, or look up something that you’re trying to figure out. My friend called it the “third brain” in a conversation.
While most of what we were saying was in jest to some extent, there was obviously some truth to it. And there was something about that truth that bothered me a bit, and got me to worry a little. Will the internet affect our ability to critically think for ourselves?
How many times a day/week do you wind up solving a problem by going straight to the internet?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to paint the internet as evil or something harmful. I’m only curious about what subtle differences in the way I think - or my children think - that it can impose, and what about those differences is healthy or unhealthy.
If more and more problems are solved and those solutions posted online, do I need to find ways to ensure that I maintain my ability to problem solve? What about my children?
Part of me knows how valuable it is to be able to find a solution online in a matter of seconds instead of taking hours or days to figure it out myself, or even worse taking up several of my peers time and energy as well. But at the same time, isn’t there usually some intangible benefit to just figuring it for myself?
I can see future households where children are taught to look something up online before they ask their parents. I can also see a workforce full of people who can’t solve problems without looking up the answers.
So, I pose the question to readers … is this a problem?
This got me thinking about how many questions/problems can be answered online, by Google specifically. I did some research and found that with the magnitude at which information is put online every day, essentially Google will be able to answer any question by 2032. I, of course, found that information on Google. So, mark your calendars for the “death of questions” in the next 25 years.
I think the solid dependence on technologies like Google, Wiki, and mobile web represent a trend that mostly adds value to our lives… The positives far outweigh the negatives.
My worship of Google has so vastly broadened my knowledge of, well, everything, that I don’t really feel shamed in admitting i use it everyday, probably between 1 and 50 times! I’m a smarter consumer, a more invested news reader, and I’ve been empowered by the ability to discover answers on my own. In many cases, i’ve had to use my own brain a little more. Because of Google, I’ve changed a shower valve, fixed my heat pump, learned to code, avoided traffic, mastered guacamole, and found cheap tickets for the nutcracker and the hawks in the same week. I’ve read about everything from Elizabeth I to lindsay lohan, and learned the actual lyrics to "Blinded by the light".
I agree that some may use Google to further reduce their already limited motivation to apply the old noggin’, but they’d be in the same boat without the internet as a tool… For me, Google isn’t a cliff notes shortcut, it’s an efficient incentive to fix it, learn it, and solve it on my own.
Danny - I can’t say for sure if Google is a good thing or a bad thing. I Googled it, but didn’t find anything relevant to help me answer that question. Now I’m not quite sure what to do. Stumped.
In my life, there will always be problems to solve. With Google and its cousins, I’m now able to spend more time on some and less on others.
If something has already been figured out, I see no virtue in reinventing the wheel.
What’s next? A machine that does MATH??
I would be inclined to think that there is no unseen harm in googling information as opposed to taking it upon myself to “figure it out.” After all, our pre-internet, pre-google methods still depended on prior knowledge that had been, in some way or another, codified (i.e. microfishe, books, scholarly journals, etc.). What the internet has done with the search engine is to allow rapid and remote access to this material. Don’t feel guilty, google away!