Do you think the fact that we always "google" things when we can't remember them, as opposed to waking up with the answer at 3 a.m., is somehow not exercising a part of our brain? Maybe we're supposed to work on it for a while...

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

When I need access to information I know but can’t accurately recall to complete an immediate task, I use a Google search to prod my recall.

When there is something I don’t know about, I use on-line searches to identify the appropriate current texts on the subjects and access them. I may then go to the current literature (academic journals) so see where knowledge in the area is going.

I don’t think so, because if you forget something and Google reminds you, you can focus on other things rather than dwelling on it for hours. I am the sort of person who only ever forgets something once, if it is important, so Google can get my thoughts back on track quickly.

Are you suggesting that Google is against nature?

I feel like my computer usage impairs my ability to remember more than one thing at a time. Sometimes I’ll be in the kitchen and I’ll turn the gas under the kettle on, and I’ll put something in the toaster oven, and I’ll start washing some dishes. As I’m washing the dishes I’ll know that I have other things going on, but it’s as if they’re in different ‘tabs’ and I can’t recall the information of what else I’m doing without looking around the kitchen for a clue to help me remember.

“We’re supposed to” is magical thinking. Stop it! [Said with affection and in all probability affectation)

So anyway, is it a good thing that Google short cuts or memory labors?

If leaning on Google makes us more competent to answer the next question, then I’d say it’s a good thing. “What if Google went away”? Perhaps some day you’ll be called to answer a question in some language other than English. Would that lead you to say you should practice thinking in other languages just in case? I has me doubts. And it’s a lot more likely that you’ll be asked a question in another language than that Google (or something similar) won’t be available. The “Old Ways” are not better than the new ways just because they’re old. We did things the old ways because we didn’t know the new ways. But now, we text, and watch TV and use the phone and mail in ballots, and drive cars rather than ride horses, and we eat more soy and we live in houses – because we figured out how to do those things. But I digress.

If you think the important thing is to be able to do well on the Ge College Bowl then that means yes, you need to unhook from Google. And that and you’re old.

I think the opposite. I have a love of random facts. I look for knowledge everywhere. Google just happens to help me add to the melting pot of things I know.

Google may well be changing how we find information, but it feels like it’s doing so in a way that is broadening general knowledge, or at least making that possible. It is probably making the depth of our knowledge a bit more shallow as it’s becoming easier and easier to answer specific questions rather than to have to comprehend and distill an answer from a textbook or other less “searchable” source. So in a sense we’re trading off and perhaps losing a bit of intellectual muscle as you say. But on the whole I’m less concerned about that than say the loss of critical thinking, comprehension, or proper analysis of concepts and data presented; I don’t mind if I can’t remember a specific so long as I understand a method(s) with which to discover it and then have the capability to grasp and apply in useful fashion what I find. With google I feel that the chance for such activity greatly increases as it allows one to research a more diverse variety of subjects than may have been previously been available. Also the tangental data collected in a search may inspire further learning, discovery, and interest that might have otherwise gone unknown or overlooked… though with some of the results I get, perhaps “unknown” wouldn’t be such a bad thing >.>;;;

@drdoombot GREAT article! Thank you.

@drdoombot The article seemed very good, but I sorta trailed off and didn’t read all of it.

@drdoombot That article was very good. After reading

”Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”

in the second paragraph, I resolved to read the article in my browser it’s entirety in one sitting, without switching back and forth between tabs. I did it, but out of habit I really wanted to switch to Fluther after a paragraph to see if there was any new activity, or check to see what the new email in my inbox was about. The internet isn’t making me stupid, but it is definitely killing my attention span.

how absorbing. @petethepothead – i too experience that phenomenon, I am of the generation that can intensely remember life before google . It’s definitely not age.

I have plenty of opportunities to exercise my brain remembering things that I can’t Google. Where did I put the receip for an item I want to return. Which client’s work did In promise to get done today. Etc. Given that, I’m willing to risk turning to Google for the things it can help me recall quickly.

We had Ready Reference in my town as a kid. You’d call the County Library’s Ready Reference number with a question and a friendly librarian checked the appropriate book and answered it, within reason.

That’s how I use Google.

I was well into my 30s when the internet was created (by Al Gore?). I never really got into the habit of using a search engine as a reference source. A piece of information coming from the internet is always suspect to me unless I can verify it by some “trustworthy”, usually paper, source. Too much is passed off as fact that is actually opinion or concealed advertising.

I know that my reading and listening to good music has suffered since I started dwelling so much on the internet. I don’t have any social contact with the world otherwise. Maybe I’d be better off unplugging this damned thing and going back to books and classical music. Social contact is greatly overrated, IMHO.

It would be the same as researching anything. To research your brain has to be active, so I don’t see how googling will make you brain dead. You actually get to research random information, where as in the past you would forget all about what you wanted to know because it would be days before you could make it out to the library.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land That bit about Al Gore inventing the Internet is just right-wing propaganda. He never said any such thing. It comes from an interview he gave CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. He was actually talking about his support of Internet deployment in the US. The vast right-wing noise machine has spread that lie far and wide, so I feel it’s incumbent on those of us who know the truth to point out the fallacy of that widespread myth whenever it surfaces.

@petethepothead – lol – that’s probably the pot dude… just saying ;)

What a great question! I actually find myself forgetting things that can’t be found on google. Like the name of a friend in school, or a teacher, of a phrase that I thought was quite witty. I don’t think I google like other people though. I search for either simple things, or website.

I retain information that I read in print sources or hear from people fairly well.

I retain much less of the information I learn from Google.

Okay show of hands.. how many who think that any information on the internet is suspect watch Fox for “news”?

I don’t doubt that the internet—Google included—has changed the way we think. But so did the advent of written language. The bards of various cultures used to memorize the genealogies and histories of their people, which few people (if any) can do today.

I’m not a neuroscientist of any kind, but it seems that memory might just be a very adaptable resource that can be used in various ways. The advisability of any given use is a concern, of course, but we are not necessarily letting part of our brain atrophy. We may just be developing it differently.