Is Google making us intellectually lazy?
That was the gist of a question financial wildman Jim Cramer asked Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt on a CNBC interview this week. Cramer pointed out that one of his daughter’s fifth-grade teachers banned the use of Google for an assignment she received. Schmidt seemed genuinely surprised by the anecdote, comparing it to how math teachers often ban the use of calculators.
Schmidt called Google ‘a new way of learning … Kids are going from knowing everything to being able to search (for information) very quickly.’
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I have to agree with Schmidt.
For me at least, the Internet and search engines haven’t made me lazier, but more inquisitive. Not a day goes by that I don’t find myself doing a search on a topic I’ve never studied, a person I’ve never heard of, a word I’ve never learned, etc. And I don’t think the Internet has let me down yet in terms of finding the information that I seek.
Last week, I was writing a short story about a loan officer for my writing class, and I was worried about the piece’s verisimilitude, so I went online to do some research. There was just a ton of stuff out there, from consumer advocacy organizations discussing how to get a loan, to government agencies explaining the daily life of a loan officer. Some of it was overkill for my purposes, but even adding just a couple of small details to the story really helped make it more believable.
And I can’t even imagine doing my job – researching stocks – without having the Internet at my disposal. The productivity boost I get from finding information so much faster than ever before possible far outweighs the potential risks of relying too heavily on other people’s work, which can at times either be based on faulty assumptions or, worse, just plain wrong.
Schmidt’s calculator analogy is somewhat apt. The Internet and search are tools which help us more easily find basic facts and figures, but if we’re looking for anything more than simple answers, and we don’t understand the underlying issues or concepts, they won’t do us much good.
Remember, trivia does not equal knowledge. And knowledge doesn’t equal intelligence.
So, in the meantime, I’m going to continue to do what my girlfriend tells me to do whenever I question one of her dubious oddball statements: ‘S-T-F-W!’ she’ll say, exasperated that i just won’t believe her.
Don’t know what that means? Neither did I … ’til I STFWed.
i’ve been staying for almost four mos at home. what i always do is make myself busy exploring and discovering the things i never know or even confused about. but my siblings use the internet to copy to cheat..I mean they do not try to even make essays..they always rely on search engines..
I really don’t know how I was able to operate before Google. It’s hard to believe that we all did our jobs for so many years without the internet but we did seem to manage. Now that its here we are just required to do so much more. You know, I’m getting tired of doing more. Maybe it’s time for me to just sit at home and relax and surf the internet for whatever.
inkgal, in my student days, I never cheated (wink-wink) but i can imagine that students nowadays use the Internet in all sorts of mischievous, deceitful ways. I’m sure there are some negative ramifications, but over time, you can’t fake intelligence, and curiosity, and originality. now in the meantime, as the more responsible one, tell your siblings to do the work themselves!!!
Dad, whoever you may be
, you make a very good point. Again, it’s like the calculator – the Internet is just a tool that makes the basic stuff easier, but it also means you’re expected to do more with the extra time you have not worrying about those basics. And doing more is tiring … so, I think you deserve a rest, too!!!
I think perhaps the teacher banned Google because students use it without ever bothering to learn the other ways. I have been known to insist upon print sources for a paper because that forces students to realize there are different ways to research a paper. It doesn’t mean electronic sources are bad, but that if we only use them, we are not seeing what else is out there.
ah yes, emily, other ways to research a paper … As i remember, those basically consisted of my dad’s 10-year-old encyclopedia set and the library. I really enjoyed the library, but do people even use the library anymore (the card catalog seems like a relic!) … if Google had its way, every book available in the library (and the world, frankly) would be scanned on its servers anyway.
I think the bigger issue may be not what’s missing online versus offline, because over time that will be less of an issue, but instead the extra stuff that’s there: a lot of bad, wrong, questionably sourced information. Just look at snopes.com, and all the rumors that the Internet has helped spread.