The Information Addiction of Google

When I first read the title “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” – an article written by one of my favorite bloggers Nicholas Carr – I originally had a very different idea as to what the article would be about. While Carr’s is a poignant examination of popular culture and our necessity for distraction, my interpretation of the title had much more to do with a seeming obsession with web-based searches – or “Googling” – in popular culture today.

It’s taken for granted that we are able to use Google (or other search engines) as reputable sources of knowledge. If I have a seemingly obscure question – for example, what is the lifespan of a mosquito – I’ll quickly and discretely search for the answer on my mobile phone or computer. If I happen to ask a friend before engaging the internet, the most common response to my question will likely be “just Google it”. In fact, Google receives over 400 million searches every day, a number which demonstrates the widespread popularity of the search engine in today’s information-obsessed culture.

While many (myself included) were initially thrilled with this new-found accessibility of knowledge, the Google phenomenon may have grown out of hand in recent years. Instead of actually thinking about a question we may have, our first impulse is to consult the Web for the answer. The thought and logic of knowledge acquisition seems to have been removed, replaced instead by a second-nature response to search the internet for an answer.

Contemporary reliance on the search engine is perhaps best seen in the website autocompleteme.com. This humor website posts screenshots of bizarre search suggestions from Google, recommendations based solely on previous user’s searches. As we can see from hundreds of examples, people use Google for seemingly obvious and bizarre searches – queries such as “How to maintain a healthy level of insanity” and “Can my fetus get pregnant” clearly indicate that many are using Google before truly contemplating the question at hand.

Quality of searches aside, there are many other dangers associated with web-based queries. As my previous post outlines, reliance on internet-based information (especially in the case of Wikipedia) isn’t a good habit to develop. Lots of this information is vague, poorly written, or simply wrong. Whenever I search a technical question on Google, it can take ten minutes to wade through a myriad of blog posts and unanswered forum topics to find the information I’m looking for. What’s more, even when a seemingly reliable piece of data is found, it isn’t always correct. Just now, when looking up the average number of Google searches in a given day, Google's first result was a number published in 2006, rather than 2010. Without proper scrutiny, I may well have used this outdated figure in my post.

Reliance on search-engine queries is further propelled by developments in mobile phone technology. The emergence of web-enabled “smartphones” has given millions of users the ability to keep the internet with them at all times. With unlimited data plans and a Google search bar built into every iPhone, why should we resist the urge to consult the web for every question we may have? Shouldn’t we embrace the availability of this incredible technology?

Indeed, there’s little question the site provides information that is nearly impossible to find otherwise. As a student of architecture, I consistently rely on Google to find photos of precedents, construction details, and building site information for class. Twenty years ago, I likely would have needed a small library in my bedroom in order to access the same amount of data. Moreover, I now have access to this data in seconds via sophisticated querying, rather than the seemingly-laborious process of flipping through books and other physical media.

It’s clear that the advent of Google has made access to information more immediate, something which arguably benefits everyone with access to this new technology. As Richard Saul wrote in 1989, “a weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth-century England.” I can’t imagine the degree to which this has increased in recent years, with internet-based querying providing a daily onslaught of information, facts, and data.

Perhaps what this discussion proves is a needed weariness of any new technology. Rather than releasing one’s mental capacities to the ever-present machine of Google, users should carefully consider their reliance on information, and the quality of information they receive in return. After all, it seems as though previous generations survived quite nicely without modern-day searching. Maybe we should learn to, too.