Category Archives: Class Discussions

The claim that some make that Google is making people “stupid” is a very interesting argument to debate. While I believe people’s overall attention spans are generally shorter because of new technological innovations, I do not believe that they make people less intelligent. Before the computer and other similar inventions were created, many of today’s simple tasks would require hours of tedious work. College students working on a research paper for example, would need to spend hours at the library researching using only books, and reading endless amounts of text looking for the information they need. Having a better attention span with the ability to concentrate on reading text for long periods of time is what people needed to adapt to in order to be successful. In this day in age, people are just as intelligent. So much more information  is available online and people are able to complete tasks or research in a quicker and easier way. I do not believe that the ability to focus on one specific text looking for necessary information for a long period of time defines how intelligent a person is. If anything, I believe Google could actually be making people more intelligent because of all the information it provides.

Now a days, if you want to know domething, you google it. It surely helps us find a lot of information you could not easlliy find without the web. However, there are opposing opinions about the use of the internet. Nicholas Carr tries to explore the problems the internet has put upon thi world. He tries to say that the use of the internet is playing with out brains. But, throughout the article, he contradicts his opinions. The way he writes also, seems to be mostly just hs opinion and his colleages who are literature people. Of course, if he asks the people with the same jobs as him, they’ll have similar says to this issue because they are so book friendly. His article really goes no where at the end. He does not have clear evidence to support that the internet is really making us stupid. He goes off track a little when he dicusses the plasticity of the brain. He shows that the brain can adjust to change and that we are uing a difernt part of the brain by usinf the computer. He fails to clearly show us a connection between his main purpose of the article. Overall, his article does not follow up with his title of the article.

Google is in fact making us less innovative thinkers however it in return makes our society a more efficient and knowledgeable community. The difference lies in the fact that a knowledgeable community  simply contains vast amount of information and is able to apply it rather than provoke further thoughts. The information however if simply taken as an object will in fact make us  more stupid. If you subtract all the other variables and simply focus on the information being read. However if you take the perspective of Google as a community exchanging ideologies and opinions it makes us more well rounded. The human element that google provides is far more expansive than any encyclopedia and may help the researcher get other perspectives and possible implications to a problem. At the same time one might question the interpretation of the word intelligence. It all basically lies in ones perspective of the word and whether it applies to profound thinkers or well rounded knowledgeable people. In my opinion it has made the everyday person more dependent yet  well rounded. In the article there was a very strict interpretation of Google as an information tool which neglected the social and diverse aspect of it. The availability of information has gave access for everyone to get accurate facts at the expense of our innovative and ambitious minds.

My methodlogy to doing research is very similar to that of Proffessor Francoeur. To begin I do a broad background check on the subject to find an interesting topic, on which I can base my thesis. For instance if I had to write about the American Westward Expansion, I would go to Wikipedia or look into my textbook to find different events, causes/effects,and significant figures that influenced the period. Once I choose something specific, I consult sources like articles, journals, and books for more detailed information on my topic. In the Western Expansion example, if I initially chose to focus on the hardships of the pioneers, I would find articles, journals, and books with detailed descriptions of their journeys and experiences. I combine these sources to write my paper.

When i do research I must first develop a question in my mind of what it is that I am trying to learn about in more depth. I can then go on to formulating a hypothesis about what I think the answer would be, and compare it to the information that I find online. I must also make sure the sources of my information are valid and accurate before I can put them to use, by looking into more than one source. Then I have to look into the specific details that can help answer my  question, as opposed to just putting random facts into my work. This means I have to know what I’m looking for, and be as strategic as possible in order to find it.

To do research, first I need a topic to look up information about. Then, I look up a more precise subject within the topic. After that, I start to look up relevant information for details on the subject. In the end, I gather up all the information I looked up and use it for my research paper.

When I research, I start off by googling the topic. I go and read or skim the Wikipedia page on that topic and get a feel of what the topic is about. I don’t use Wikipedia as a source nor do I quote it in my paper. I will find other (reliable) websites so that I could add quotes and be able to source it in my bibliography. Also I like have a book on the topic just to have a published author for citing.

I start by analyzing the assignment and picking out keywords that would help me find out more about it. I would enter these keywords into google until I got a better understanding on the topic. I would then use what I read from the first few relevant search results as filters for the Encyclopedia search tool until I got what I’m looking for.