Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas

¶ … Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas Carr, noted author and former editor of the Harvard Business Review wrote a controversial, provocative essay in 2008 for the Atlantic Monthly titled Is Google Making Us Stupid? Carr contends that the alacrity and accuracy of searches on Google specifically. And across the Internet in general, are changing how people assimilate, analyze and retain information. His many allegories in the article illustrate that the shallowness of thought today he contends is pervasive is a direct result of Google's predominance as a source of information and knowledge.

Analysis of Mr. Carr's Myopic View of the World In attempting to explain the differences in learning and its related activities including reading, observation and thought, Mr. Carr uses the allegory of "being a scuba diver in a sea of words "(Carr, 2008). He laments in the next sentence that "Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski" (Carr, 2008). Mr. Carr fails to realize that it isn't Google's responsibility for him discipline his mind to focus and achieve his learning objectives, it's his.

This myopic focus and lamenting of Google robbing him and all of mankind with the ability to focus on books, in-depth discussion and thought throughout the essay is as paradoxically shallow as he accuses Google of making mankind. Mr. Carr fails to realize and make note of the fact that the most successful global economies today are running on information. Its accuracy, alacrity, context, and speed are catalysts of economic growth.

In saying Google specifically and the Internet in general are dumbing down mankind, he also fails to successfully illustrate how these technologies and the value they deliver are re-ordering his perceptual concepts and frameworks of reference. If there is one certain insight gained from reading Mr. Carr's essay, it is his frameworks and taxonomies of reference are galvanized to see detrimental aspects of even the most positive, powerful innovations propelling economies forward.

The ethicacy of technology cannot be judged by a lack of discernment, discipline or judgment on the part of those consuming it. Ethically Google has the responsibility to be egalitarian in their data capture, structure and search, and they strive for this. Their business model is inherently egalitarian, with search being available to anyone, anywhere, with advertisers charged for keywords used by those searching for information. Mr. Carr misses the highly egalitarian nature of the Google business model completely. Yet more fundamentally, Mr.

Carr completely misses the point of how powerful this instantaneous availability of information is to.