This is from a piece by Nicholas Carr who has written a book called "The Shallows", in which he outlines many effects that he thinks the online environment is causing:
There's a study called "The Laptop and the Lecture" that divided a class into two sets. One-half of the students could use their laptops in a classroom while listening to a lecture. They were free to surf the Web. And the other half had to keep their laptops closed. And then there was a test of comprehension. And the students who used their laptops scored significantly lower on the comprehension test for how well they could remember the content of the lecture. An interesting twist was that students who visited sites relevant to the content of the lecture actually did even worse on the test than students who browsed unrelated sites. It indicates that, even if you think that allowing students to look at other information relevant to what they're being taught might enhance their learning, it actually appears to have the opposite effect.
Source: http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Technology-Making-Your/66128/
Accompanying his book, Carr also wrote an article that has been widely discussed over the last year, called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" - read it here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
What are your reactions?
is google making us stupid?
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Here is another interesting article about what we can know of others in the age of the mobile phone:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/mar/23/death-of-the-telephone
I can remember a time when I first came to this country - when many people had no phone of any kind, mobile or landline. In those days, it often seemed to me that some people regarded previously-arranged appointments as entirely contingent upon other events that might spring up. For example, if someone turned up at your house just when you were ready to leave to visit someone else, your "physical" visitor would be given priority...
Anyway, what about the implications of these sorts of technologies for social knowledge?
What is google?I think only google can describe itself as I can’t find it on Encarta.
Example:-
Nana Abena says “Hey what is the time in Spain?”
Jeffrey replies, “Just Google it.”
This word has surrounded us so much that we are attached to it in all our walks of life.
Advantages are:-
•No need of post offices.
•Easy to search for journals with a mouse click.
•Checking up latest news.
•Can know the weather in any part of the world immediately.
•Helps us to do our write-ups …Physics!!
•EE Research-I just wonder if NET wasn’t there I must be sitting in a public library researching in between millions of books…!!! Difficult to imagine even.
Disadvantages are:-
•Distraction during our academic life…some sites eg:- Twitter, Facebook and the others.
•Wastage of time
•Less concentration
•And all the other things that Nicolas Carr has mentioned are the demerits.
Therefore my sincere reaction to this will be:-
I understand there are advantages and disadvantages of google therefore their needs to be a balance of open-mindedness. By this I mean, google should not be totally eradicated from our lives but we need to find a way to manage ourselves within the time period of 24hours in a day in order to be successful. As far as the headline is concerned “is google making us stupid?” is a bit debatable, which caused a kerfuffle, so I think it must be changed, considering the allegations which came come up.
On the other hand the devices used for social networking example phone or telephone calls also have their importance. Some positive and negative implications are:-
Advantages:-
•Helps to connect
•Increase our social attributes
•Easy to call the doctor or ambulance for emergency purposes.
Disadvantages:-
•Disturbance during an important meeting.
•Distraction during a class.
•If the phone is kept in the t-shirt pocket which is near the heart and it vibrates-it is injurious to health.
Hence, I don’t know which direct conclusion can be made from the above implications.
According to Encarta, The word “stupid “means: regarded as showing a lack of intelligence, perception, or common sense.
Oxford advanced dictionary defines “stupid” as someone who is slow to learn and showing a lack of thought or good judgment.
Google is a search engine that helps to find information all over the world on the internet. Therefore, is using this search engine “making us stupid”, in order words, by using “Google”, do we show lack of common sense or perception?
If Google helps us to find information which will in turn makes us gain so much knowledge about about thing we might never have the opportunity of knowing in a classroom or our everyday life. For instance, as considering sanjana’s example: “Nana Abena says “Hey what is the time in Spain?”
Jeffrey replies, “Just Google it.” Definitely, Abena does not live in Spain and so she does not know what time it is in Spain. However, Google makes it possible and easier for her to have an idea of what time it is without having to go to Spain and find out. Isn’t it just wonderful!!! I mean... this is just so cool. She does not have to spend money or time in a plane to go all the way to Spain to find out or even call someone from Spain and ask for the time. All she has to do is “GOOGLE IT”, Moreover; Google will definitely provide her more information about not only Spain’s time but other places.
Let’s look at another instance, assuming my teacher is teaching about the solar system and I want to know more about it even before I go for class. I definitely can’t go all the way there; I only depend on information by people who have been there and obviously the only place I can find so much about the solar system is on the internet. Once again, all I have to do is “GOOGLE IT” therefore, how can this make me “STUPID” instead, I’m gain so much as there is so much information that Google has to offer.
Therefore, my opinion is, GOOGLE” does not make us stupid but makes us more curious to know about so many things. Thus, if the students that are allowed to use laptops do not perform well, it is not as a result of “GOOGLE.” Maybe, the test was based on what the teacher was teach and maybe that not what those students looked for on the internet. To a great extent, it also possible that if all the students were tested based on what information the student that used laptops found, they will definitely perform better than those listening in class. Therefore, i say, “GOOGLE” does not make one stupid, if one cannot decide what on what is relevant to his search then he is already stupid even before using the search engine.
I honestly think that even if the students were not on their laptops but were doing other things such as being on their phones or reading a book, they would have still been distracted. Not that I want to say that the test was flawed, but then the laptops in use were simply a distraction to that set of students. I don't think 'The Laptop and The Lecture' was a very effective way for proving that Google is making us stupid.
And by the way, what does stupid mean in this context? Does it mean dum or maybe just being lazy? These are some of the things that we should think about before trying to answer the question on Google making us stupid
First of all I think that the word “stupid” in this context is referring to lazy for in the article it refers to it as short-circuiting our brains. I think that, Google first of all is a very powerful tool that can help you with a lot of things, that is, only if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, so many things have been put on the internet now that it is hard to find what is reliable and what is not. Since Google now has everything, people especially of my generation have become fully dependent on it. In a rush to do assignments and especially research work, the fastest thing to do is go to Google instead of walk to the library, find the books that are related to the research, sit down and read through to get to the information desired. It is therefore, I must admit, easier to use Google to look for anything and everything. This obviously means laziness is a factor because we are looking for the easiest and fastest means and not the one that will give most probably more reliable information. Google in a way, is making us “lazy” because people fail to think and apply effort in researching and just tend to rely on Google where they will easily get the information without thinking about the research a little.
I also agree with Kweku that the method used, “laptop and lecture” is not an accurate means of finding out if Google is making us stupid because students were allowed to surf the web and could have easily been facebooking, skyping or doing something unrelated to the topic. This will definitely affect their marks. Also the reason why students who visited other sites did very poorly is because currently quite a lot of information on the internet is not reliable…
I think stupid is a harsh word….Lazy should be better.
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