IS Google making us stupid?

The question posed in the title has haunted since last week when my friend Kathy Ward sent me a link to the Web site Is Google Making us Dumber? The website includes questions posted on the Google search engine such as:

Is poop flammable?

Does the magic 8 ball work?

How can I get this popular guy to get me pregnant?

Cats like Hitler

Can Black people be emo?

(My answers at the end of the post)

Nicholas Carr tackled the question about whether Google is dumbing us down as a country  in a July/August 2008 cover article in Atlantic magazine. Carr contends that the Internet is diminishing our capacity to concentrate and contemplate. He notes a five-year study that showed that most online readers are grazers. We only skim the surface of articles before skipping off to another article. Carr also argues that our capacity to contemplate may be diminishing as we rely on the Internet to do the intellectual heavy lifting for us rather than use our own brains to work questions out. Stan Schroeder made a similar point a year earlier on Mashable in a article entitled Why Google is Making us Dumber, noting that we are relying on Google for simple tasks like remembering a Web site’s URL or making simple conversions such as timezone differences that we used to rely on our brain for. On the other hand, Google had its defenders, including Matt Asay who claims in Tech Dirt  that skimming is a logical defense against the torrent of information available online, with people spending more time on interesting or important articles. Asay also notes that technologies are neutral; they can be used intelligently or foolishly. Google search provides a platform for those who would ask stupid questions regardless of the technology. Alas, I sometimes find myself in the category.

Carr admitted his conclusions were preliminary and that a definitive conclusion on the effects of Google could not be made until after long-term  neurological and psychological experiments had been conducted. He didn’t have to wait long. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry featured an article by Gary Small and associates that employed an MRI scan of  the brain of older persons during search engine use to explore its effect on brain activity. They found that Internet savvy older individuals showed increased activiation in areas of the brain controlling decision making, complex reasoning and vision. Moreover, among the Internet savvy, searching may engage more neural activity than reading text.  They call their work preliminary, so this probably won’t be the last word on the effects of Google on brain activity.

What do you think? Is Google making us stupid by blunting concentration and contemplation or do searches engage our brain in more complex reasoning and decision making? Or is Google simply a tool that can be used intelligently or moronically? Anyone want to fess up about the most stupid question they posed in a Google search?

Answers to stupid Google searches:

1. Is poop flammable? Not if it is fresh. The flaming-bag-on-the-front-of-the-door trick would not be nearly as hilarious if fresh poop burned.

2 Does the magic 8 ball work? I posed that question three times to my own Magic 8 Ball. I got three different answers: Signs point to yes; reply hazy, try again; and my sources say no. So the jury’s still out.

3. How can I get this popular guy to get me pregnant? Alcohol, plenty of alcohol.

4. Cats like Hitler: If the question is “Do cats like Hitler,” I would say no. As a dog lover and former cat owner, I found cats to be pretty aloof and indifferent. They wouldn’t like Hitler, but they wouldn’t like Gandhi either. If the question is “Are there cats that look like Hitler?” the answer is unequivocally yes, as the more than 3,600 photos of feline fuehrers on the website Cats That Look Like Hitler! amply demonstrates. If I were Poland, the rise of the feline Fourth Reich would have me more than a little concerned. There is little discussion online about dogs that look like Hitler. Just sayin’

5. Can Black people be emo? Sure, but why would they want to have greasy black hair, horned-rimmed glasses, vintage children’s size t-shirts with random sayings, clunky black shoes, barrettes and eyeliner (if you are male)? And why would you want to sob uncontrollably anytime a song by Death Cab for Cutie or the All American Rejects comes on?