Is Google Making Us Stupid?

So as many of us know there is an all powerful being that has saved grades, answered educational prayers, and wrecked curves. The all knowing student's deity known to many as Google reigns as the definitive search engine (sorry bing and yahoo) to use when we just don't want to look hard enough for an answer. Not just students, but everybody seems to use Google for whatever they need to find. While we may find Google a godsend that has all the answers we could ever hope for, some think it is making our own abilities to find answers and solve problems. Nicholas Carr's entire article Is Google making Us Stupid? analyses how are use of Google and internet databases are grinding away at our abilities to make connections and find information for ourselves.

Carr points out how not-so-long ago a person had to look thru an encyclopedia or collections of articles at their local library for simple quotes or bits of information. right now I could tell you that on 16 December 1991, Kazakhstan became the last Soviet republic to declare independence and that its communist-era leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, became the country's first President and has retained that position for more than two decades. Did you know that? I certainly didn't but one quick Google search has given me more information in moments than what i could find in three hours at a library. The only issue is that instead of reading a great deal of information and drawing information about culture, trade, history, and various other points about the nation of Kazakhstan, I've found one small bit of in formation and promptly left. I don't even think I could locate Kazakhstan on a map and i just told you about its president and independence from the Soviet Union. Carr is right when he says that we don't look into things and lose the deeper reading skills we once had. With other points on how writing on a laptop, on a typewriter, with pen, or with quill will effect how a person writes and how efficiency can have benefits and struggles, Carr never really answers whether or not Google is making us stupid. 

Carr's article has valid points and he's not wrong when he says that Google and the internet as a whole is changing the way we think. With the new method of  information hopping and picking up pieces of data and whatnot, there is a new breed of study, analysis, and hypothesis. Instead of looking for possible solutions we look at whats worked in the past and work from their. We've gone from problem-and-solution to trial-and-error. The most significant change is that we are gunning for efficiency rather than quality. If a person can write a paper using sparknotes and summaries in an hour, why would he or she ever want  to spend hours of study and analysis to make a deeper paper. The opportunity cost of time is weighted more than anything else. Google isn't making us stupid, its making us faster. In doing so we may be sacrificing content and knowledge but we don't seem to mind and it doesn't look like its going to change any time soon.