When you need information, where do you go first? For most people the answer is, google it.” According to Forbes, Google, as of May 2017, was valued at $101.8 billion and has all the answers to every question that a person could possibly have about life, the universe and everything.
That being said, have people become overly dependent on search engines?
An argument could be made that yes, people are way too dependent on internet search engines for their information. The English language turned “google” into a verb because people do it so much.
In schools all over the United States, students as young as kindergartners are given iPads and tablets to use for the purposes of making school work and assignments easier to access and work on.
For the current generation smartphones, tablets, computers and the modern internet has always been present in education. This is not the case though. It has only been in the past decade that smart devices have been implemented as tools for learning in the classroom. Things have certainly changed.
Are we just becoming like older generations, complaining about youth using technology?
Back in the day, people used to be just as dependent on large encyclopedia collections, rows of books in their house, and libraries, but now all of that information can be carried around on computers in our pockets.
It is reasonable to say that there is a different kind of intelligence in today’s society. Not intelligence in the sense of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), but something that could be considered the precursor to it.
Easily accessible data and information is a part of how most people run their lives now. Businesses, homes, automobiles, education and even an individual’s social life can exist almost entirely online.
However, with this increased availability of information, the potential for laziness to become the normal human state also becomes possible. What no one wants is a situation like what is shown in the Pixar movie “WALL-E” where we have all of the technology but absolutely no drive to use it for anything beyond making it so we can move less and consume more.
Are people dependent on search engines? Yes, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. We are living in the most advanced and enlightened age ever and that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Computers once took up entire rooms and information for work and school assignments used to have to be hunted down all over library shelves. Now all of that and more can be put in your pocket and literally carried everywhere.
Story By
Carlee Jo Blumenthal
opinion@suunews.com
Cartoon By
Sam Sherrill
cartoonist@suunews.com
