Internet23.02.2010
Is Google making you stupid?
The growing mass popularity of search portals such as Google in the past decade has raised questions as to whether the World Wide Web is gradually making the human population less intelligent.
Some have argued that the mass of information that is immediately on hand reduces short term memory while others suggest that community-based information portals, like Wikipedia, are degrading the legitimacy of online material.
Research conducted by the Elon University in North Carolina and Pew Internet examined surveys in which 895 technology stake holders and academics were asked if the internet was making us less intelligent.
The respondents unanimously agreed that the internet serves to enhance the intelligence of the human race, not reduce it.
“Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge,” said study co-author Janna Anderson, director of the Imagining the Internet Centre at Elon University.
Many of the respondents stated that Google will not make us unintelligent but will instead allow better access to information – thereby equipping us to make better choices.
“People are already using Google as an adjunct to their own memory. For example, I have a hunch about something, need facts to support, and Google comes through for me. Sometimes, I see I’m wrong, and I appreciate finding that out before I open my mouth,” said Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s List.
In addition 65% of the respondents agreed that by 2020 reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge would have improved thanks to the internet. This will not however be without the sacrifice of long-form, classical expression believes Clay Shirky, Professor at Interactive Telecommunications Program, New York University.
“This is a distinction without a metric. I think long-form expressive fiction will suffer, while all numeric and graphic forms of rendering knowledge, from the creation and use of 16 databases to all forms of visual display of data will be in a golden age, with ordinary non-fiction writing getting a modest boost. So, English majors lose and engineering wins.”
The survey also found that 42% of experts questioned believed that anonymous online activity would be “sharply curtailed” by 2020 due to more stringent technology and identification systems.
Is Google making you stupid? << Discussion
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