In modern time, it would be unusual if in a high school classroom, not every student had a phone.  Our phones allow us to do many useless things like play candy crush and minecraft, but they do allow us to do some things like having access to the internet that help us in day to day life.  Giving us access to google, wikipedia, and countless articles, it’s easy to get lost in the vast sea of knowledge. Although google is convenient, it is hurting the minds of thousands in was that people don’t even notice.  Reducing our memory, debilitating our ability to read and find information, and destroying the need for human interaction and teacher are three ways that the googlization of knowledge is having a negative affect.

If memory loss is desirable, using google to find information is recommended.  In a study conducted in 2011 by the journal Science, the results showed that, “when people know that they have future access to information, they tend to have a better memory of how and where to find it – instead of recalling the information.”  This means that science has been able to prove that using google makes you less inclined to remember the information. Remembering information was a vital skill to people in a world before technology, but nowadays the ability to learn information is declining. In one article it says that there are two trillion google searches every year as of 2016 (Google Now Handles at Least 2 Trillion Searches per Year, Sullivan). In 1999 that number was only one billion . That means searches have increased by two thousand a year.  When you actually learn something, you gain knowledge on a subject, but when you use google, you gain knowledge on the way to find information, which for us is simply googling it.

If you’ve ever written a blog you know that you should never write long blocks of text.  Maybe it’s because long lengths of text look confusing, but maybe it is because we can no longer absorb information.  We are so used to quickly skimming the first articles google sends to the screen for us, so we can find the answer fast.  In an article by Nicholas Carr called “Is Google Making us Stupid”, he quotes Friedman, a pathologist from the university of Michigan who said, “thinking has taken on a staccato quality”.  He calls is staccato because he, and many other, loose train of thought when reading long texts, turning it into broken fragments of words.  Even going as far as to say that more than three or four paragraphs has become too much to absorb and analyze. This struggle to comprehend comes from our usage of google.  According to one article on seo tribunal, “google receives over 63,000 searches per second”(63 Fascinating Google Search Statistics, Aleksandra).  Using google makes the answer pop right up before you even click on an article, so when we go to read we get bored, wanting the answer to be right at the top.  To solve our boredom, a quick scan of the text is often sufficient for us. This can be harmful because you miss details. When we skim through a text to find what we are looking for we may miss important things that are needed to fully understand or form an opinion.  Aside from lack of details, using google may make reading long books, articles, or information a lost art.

Going to school is often complained about, but most friends are made at school.  Schools teach kids how to interact with people like classmates and teachers, a vital part of our lives.  Although schools are so important for social skills, classrooms are easily being traded in for mass open online courses, MOOCs.  MOOCs are free online classes available for anyone to enroll in, all there is to do is hop to google and sign up on a website. Although a convenient choice, turning to a MOOC removes the needs for human interaction within classes.  In one article it says, “MOOC style of education will gradually kill care, empathy, and respect involved between students and teachers in a physical classroom,’’(Ignite Engineers). In a world gone digital, another way to avoid socialization is the last thing needed.  Not interacting with people removes purpose and emotion from learning. Google has replaced a room full of students holding you accountable with a digital teacher who will never know your name. This concept reduces motivation to complete assignments and complete courses.  MOOC learning is just one way teachers and classrooms are being replaced; one day school won’t be needed because everything you need to know can be found on google.

Some people might argue that google has only benefited society.  Claims like it has made knowledge accessible and that it is good for people with social anxiety are easily refuted.  Although google has made knowledge available at our fingertips, information has always accessible through teachers and books.  The only difference is now it is portable, but in the end it is better to read and talk to people as I talked about in my previous paragraphs.  People with social anxiety may look at MOOCs as a way to skip the classroom, but isolating yourself from the world is never a good idea. Going to schools and campuses may has been found to help people with social anxiety.  Celeste Conlon from the national social anxiety center writes in an article called “Social Anxiety and School Refusal” that, “excessive absences can lead to long-term academic failure, social isolation, conflict at home, school dropouts, and even occupational problems and marital problems in adulthood”.  Social anxiety patients need to attend schools, it can be very helpful. Although google can be positive, overall it has a negative effect.

Turning to google for everything is having a negative effect on the world.  Using google shrinks memory capability, reduces ability to read and analyze, and is killing the culture in schools.  The internet is often viewed as a brilliant thing, but what is the cost of brilliance? In a world where everyone has a cellphone or laptop, we need to remember the importance of basic skills like reading, remembering, and socializing.