Research and Discuss: Is Google Making us Stupid?

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Is Google making Us Stupid?
Introduction
Research studies have shown that there is a major difference between individuals who focus on offline and online reading behaviors. Generally, online reading has been shown to have negative effects on people’s cognition. Hooper and Herath say that comprehension, concentration, recall, and absorption rates were found to be significantly lower when a person reads online compared to offline reading (51). Over the years, scholars have analyzed how Google impacts on online reading, concentration, comprehension, content recall, and content absorption. It is undeniable that advancement in technology as well as internet accessibility has altered the waypeople gather and conceive information. Whereas studies have revealed that there are numerous advantages of using modern technologies and the internet on reading habits, evidence suggests that the negative impacts erodes the perceived benefits. This paper critically analyzes the reasons why Google is making people stupid and what needs to be done to tackle this problem.
Arguments
According to an article published in 2008 entitled “Is Google making us stupid?” Nicholas Carr evoked debates on how Google affects peoples reading behaviors and their intellect. Google was used as a proxy for the internet and what motivated him to write this article is that he was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate when he tries to read an offline material for an extended period of time (Hooper & Herath 51). In addition, the internet reduced his capacity to completely engage in contemplative reflection of the material and content he was reading. Carr therefore arguesthat the internet tends to have an extensive negative impact on people’s ability to comprehend and contemplate which ultimately affects their reading behaviors.
To determine the impacts of internet experience and reading ability especially when it comes to keyword-based searching tendencies and performance, scholars have utilized various research questions and hypotheses. This in turn enables researchers to determine how online reading differ from offline reading, and the general impact of the internet on reading behaviors. For instance, Lei, Lin and Sun analyzed how students performed their searchbehaviors when they have specific tasks to search (152). This includes the number of keywords, number of viewed pages, and the search time. Search performance depended on the success rate of search behaviors.
Another important issue is the impact of internet experience and reading ability on search tendencies/behaviors and performance. Quantitative indicators were collected to analyze searchbehaviors and performance, while qualitative observational descriptions were used to determine the search processes. Lastly, the scholars tried to determine if there is a correlation between searchbehaviors of an individual and search performance. Lei, Lin and Sun found that experience in using the internet does not necessarily mean that a person will have a better search performance (153). This is because despite of experience, participants tend to spend minimal amount of time analyzing a certain page, and therefore, experienced individuals are likely to make similar mistakes just like inexperienced users. Basically, from the above analysis, it can be argued that Google does not necessarily make people smart since it does not improve their reading behaviors.
It is evident that technology advancement has radically transformed the current society, and this implies that reading is no longer limited to print media. Internet sources have extended the scope of information, as well as reading practices and practices, especially among the current net generation of college students. However, this does not imply that internet has improved people’s reading habits. Studies have shown that internet surfing is in transition, and it increased non-sequential reading, superficial reading, interactive reading, and extensive reading, while reducing the rate of in-depth and concentrated reading (Loan 1). These findings indicate that there are both positive and negative impacts of online reading, and it depends on how students use Google in their learning schedules.
Electronic Journals
Google has also impacted on the way students and scholars tend to seek reliable information from the internet, with most people relying on electronic journals to seek scholarly information. A qualitative study was conducted to determine the effects of electronic journals on the information searching behavior among students and academics at Catalan universities. The results reveled that people are able to read more and their search has been broadened. However, the study also revealed that their reading practices have become more superficial and they use their discrimination abilities to determine what they read comprehensively (Ollй & Borrego 1). In addition, the fact that electronic journals are easily accessible over the internet implies that people rarely visit the libraries to look for in-depth information. What this means is that Google and the entire web browsing tends to replace physical browsing, a factor that may negatively affect the abilities of academics to be more informed.
Google and Google Scholars are the most popular web search engines that academics use as sources of scholarly information. Nevertheless, internet search sites expose numerous challenges to academics since they may not be able to manage their own scientific information. Increase in the amount of information that can be accessed from the internet as well as improved accessibility has negatively affected scholar’s search behavior of authentic information (Ollй & Borrego 2). Academic libraries are less frequented and this reduces the capacity of scholars and academics to gather scholarly contents. The attributes of electronic medium as well as the increase in accessibility of large volumes of scientific information has affected the information search behaviorsamongresearchers.
Previous research studies have shown that the use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches offer a deeper understanding of the issue that is being studied. This implies that when internet source are used in collaboration...