Has google made people dumber?

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   Melissa-Chavezposted 12 years ago

   I've heard that since Google's huge success and it's availability  ,and even more now that most phones have a google search bar in the home screen, people have been getting dumber since they don't have to remember things anymore. I mean every answer is at their fingertips. What do you think?

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      LindaSmith1posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I agree. They don't have to remember, to think, to know how to spell. In time, they will forget to how to even converse in a normal fashion now that so many do nothing but text.  We are going to end up like robots.

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      paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Well, I gotta disagree with this one...
      
      Pre-internet: People would wonder something and just keep on wondering, because research back then was laborious and time-consuming.
      
      Today: People wonder something, and are immediately provided the answer. Which leads to the next question, and the next question, and the next question. Which leads to continual learning, self-improvement, and advancements in life that would otherwise just plain not be possible.
      
      Now where the hell are my keys...

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         brittanytoddposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I have to agree with you, PS.  I think that I know much more because I can find the answer to my questions so quickly.  I know some of them could be wrong, like WA pointed out below, but I try to do my research.
         
         I think that maybe some people have become dumber, while some really absorb the information (or organize it in a word doc like me haha).

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      WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I think that it is more often the wrong answer that is at their fingertips.
      
      Most people have little clue of how to search and even less on how to assess the quality of the information they find. This problem is compounded by the fact that Google is increasingly favouring sites such as Yahoo Answers, which are full of incorrect information.

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      BlissfulWriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I think Google made me smarter because I learn a lot of things by Googling that I otherwise would not have learned.

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   LookingForWaldenposted 12 years ago

   Edison never remembered anything he could look up.
   I don't think he was dumb.
   I think he was alive before google but I can't remember.

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   Randy Godwinposted 12 years ago

   Of course they have become dumber. We make money off them through Google with our crappy articles, don't we? 

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   Hamad Irfanposted 12 years ago

   Yes it might be true, because that very search box has become the answer of our every question. I for instance consider myself dumber as I have been loosing my grasp over spellings just because Google is there to correct us.

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   knolyourselfposted 12 years ago

   Google is my memory. Couldn't do without it. I have a bad memory on purpose. Keeps me from burning my brain out.

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   LindaSmith1posted 12 years ago

   I agree with you WriteAngled.  Look at Wikipedia, those articles are written by people like us.  So many think it is an official online encyclopedia.  There is a lot of wrong information there. ASK is another one.  So many have no idea as to what they are looking at for information. Then if they spell the word wrong, there you go again. Wrong information because of spelling being different. We can thank texting for that.  People don't talk anymore they sit and text back and forth.

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   paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

   It's beginning to look like I'm a cult of one.

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   knolyourselfposted 12 years ago

   Wikipedia is open source. Anybody can contribute kind of like democracy. It is community consensus
   of many contributers, to a single subject. Or you can trust authority of the few, like encyclopedias with maybe three contributors or  like maybe the media where the owners decide what is right and wrong.

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      WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That is exactly the problem! Just because a majority of people like a piece of information does not make it correct. With any Tom, Dick or Harry being able to come in and change what is presented, there is no way of ensuring the information has originated from an authority in the field.
      
      I use Wikipedia occasionally for rapid snippets of information about subjects that are not of great importance to me, to get basic dates etc, etc. However, if I need trustworthy information about important subjects, I try whenever possible to access academic journals, sites of professional associations and similar.
      
      Of course I do not consider the mass media as being authoritative!

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   knolyourselfposted 12 years ago

   You can trust authority or you can trust the commons. Personally I think authority is mostly full of crap. If Picasso says its art its art.
   But as they say it takes money to make money. Maybe it takes intelligence to know intelligence.
   Those who don't know have to rely on authorities.
   However most often the authorities are more concerned with logic that benefits themselves
   than they are with me.

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    c2mtechposted 12 years ago

    I think Melissa is right. We can search about anything on Google these these days and Google is available to almost everyone who owns a computer or even a phone.

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