Elgoog

"Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr

"We are not only what we read, we are how we read."

Reading is something to be learned. Skimming (or jet skiing) over the surface of a text does absolutely nothing for you, except let you squeak by. Each word needs to be taught to your brain, in order for each word to be soaked up. Using Google is a great technology and I, personally, love it; I love having access to any subject I can think of within an arm's length. The problem is we all become too accustomed to the simplicity. Once we find the particular sentence containing the answer, we click that little "X" in the corner of the screen and head to Facebook once again; we don't ever sit and read the background or the surrounding facts (which is probably the most important part and key to understanding what the answer is all about.)

So, it's not really that Google make us "stupid"....it's more of Google makes us think less. We, as a society, have greater mental capabilities than any other society to have ever existed and the technologies we have today are a big part in helping us achieve that. Greater technology allows more answers and more information more quickly; this really creates a great circle.

Society today is also dumber than societies back then, in the ways of thinking less. In the olden days, orators would speak for hours on end based solely on their memories. Today we use TelePrompTers to tell us exactly what to say in perfect order. Coming up with such genius ideas was harder to come by without technology. New ideas today are usually just perfections of old ideas or those ideas are thought of as cool for a second then slip through are memory onto something newer and better.

If you've ever seen the movie "Idiocracy", our society, unfortunately, can end up a lot like that. This movie reminds me of an exaggeration of what society will become by depending heavily on technology.

If you haven't seen this movie, watch it! You could end up terrified or end up with a few great laughs.