Is Google Making Us Stupid?

IS GOOGLE MAKING US STUPID?Matt Gillis, Emily Poskrobko,Katie Siemianowski

Video Intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDv

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Net as a Universal Medium Immediate access to rich stores of

information Comes at a price

Marshall McLuhan“Media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS_FwVI7Si4&feature=related

Staccato Quality Freidman- quickly scanning short

passages of text from many sources online

McLuhan- fight to stay focused on longer pieces of writing

“Skimming Activity” University College London- study of

online research habits Hopping from one source to another Rarely return to one already visited

Psychologists Say… Maryanne Wolf (Tufts)- web reading puts

efficiency and immediacy above all else Weaken capacity for deep reading Ability to interpret text and make mental

connections is weakened

Effects on the… SQUIRREL! James Olds- “The brain has the ability to

reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”

Scattering attention span, diffusing concentration, can’t process information

Pop-up ads, shortening of articles, hyperlinks (websites cater to our short-attention spans)

Pancakes! Pancake People: access to many

websites, but don’t retain much information, don’t go in depth (result of skimming activity)

What Students Don’t Know Research process- students overuse

Google, misuse scholarly databases 30 students interviewed- mentioned

Google 115 times (twice as much as any other search engine)

Students not good at using Google, can’t build a search that produced good sources

Google (verb) Google Defense:

More info to access Faster understanding More productive as thinkers

“Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

-Nietzsche