tech.nol.o.gy

Not that I am against technology, nor can I deny my love of Google, but for the sake of argument, does Google make us stupid? Are we at risk in this society of becoming too dependent on technology? As Nicolas Carr states in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, “In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Sergey Brin said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” Last year, Page told a convention of scientists that Google is “really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale.” If we become so interdependent on technology will our own ability to think and rationalize become obsolete? Like in this video of Discovery Channel’s “Ten Ways the World Will End”, where the number nine way will be by artificial intelligence.
Although this seems far-fetched, Google is finishing my sentences so well that it’s a little scary.
Before the days of cell phones, when you actually had to type in the phone number (gasp!), I had all my friends and family’s phone numbers memorized in my head. These days I would be at a loss if I misplaced my phone since I couldn’t tell you even one phone number (besides my mom’s of course). I guess I could always use facebook to get back in contact with them! This is highlighted in a BusinessWeek article, Which numbers do you need to know?. Have you ever purchased something and you hand the person a twenty dollar bill, they punch it into the register and then you say “Oh I have a quarter since I don’t want to get that much change back” and they can’t figure out the math without a calculator?  I also have a friend that drove to a convention and when I asked where it was she replied that she had no idea and that she had just followed where her Garmin told her to go. I also had a friend state that there was really no purpose in learning how to correctly spell words since “…there’s always spell check”.
Although technology’s benefits far outweigh the cons, it can be seen in a negative light if it is used as a crutch and hinders complex thinking.