Menu

First Click: Google’s making me dumb

June 23rd, 2015

78

I don’t know my own phone number even though it hasn’t changed in 15 years. Yet I can still remember the home numbers of my two best friends in grade school. As a species, we’re gaining more and more knowledge every year. But I’m only getting dumber.

I blame Google.

I can’t name half the streets in my Amsterdam neighborhood without the help of Google Maps. I can’t fully grok the newsletters my kids bring back from school until Google Translate converts the Dutch into English. And with Google Now on pace to deliver just the right information at just the right time, soon I won't have to remember anything. Thanks, Google.

I blame Apple, too.

My iPhone puts the world’s information at my fingertips. With Siri, I just say "call my wife" without ever having to know her phone number. Or I can ask "who won the Oscar for best picture in 2014" to settle an argument over Steve McQueen. Tap and hold on any multi-syllabic word in the Kindle app and I can instantly read the definition. Why memorize anything when it’s so readily accessible? Way to go, Apple.

The idea that the internet is making us stupid isn’t new, of course. I couldn’t remember where I first heard it but a quick Google led me to a 2008 Nicholas Carr piece published in The Atlantic titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" In 2011 he got his answer from Betsy Sparrow at Columbia. Her research showed that human memory is adapting to the instant availability of all the world’s information. As such, we’re more likely to remember where the facts are rather than the facts themselves. That’s certainly true for me — my memory sucks but I can craft the perfect Google search for just about anything.

The apps and services I carry on my smartphone have improved my life immeasurably. But they’ve also made me lazy. So really, I guess the only one to blame for my empty brain is myself.


Five stories to start your day


  1. Taylor Swift vs Apple: nobody wins

    We're still in that experimental phase. No one knows how any of this is going to work, or even if paid music streaming services are a realistic path towards making music itself as valuable as tote bags and tour merch has been for Taylor Swift. But unless Apple and Spotify and all the rest try to come up with newer, better ideas, Taylor's just going to stay pissed.

  2. Eternify tricks Spotify into paying your favorite band

    As this week's back-and-forth between Taylor Swift and Apple has shown, the debate over whether or not artists can get a fair deal from music streaming is far from over. However, if your favorite band doesn't have the cultural clout of Miss Bad Blood herself, then you might want to consider alternate ways to help them get paid. Enter Eternify, a website that lets you play anything from Spotify's catalog in 30-second loops, slowly racking up pay per stream revenue for your artist of choice.

  3. Someone in France accidentally ate a fluorescent lamb with jellyfish DNA

    Citing sources at INRA and France's justice department, Le Parisien reports that the lamb was sold to a slaughterhouse last fall, along with non-genetically modified sheep. It was then sold by the slaughterhouse to an unnamed individual in October 2014, though it's not clear how many people may have eaten it.

  4. Everything coming to Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video in July

    This summer's blockbuster movie season is bringing people out to theaters and setting records, but if crowds aren't your thing there's still an influx of new movies and shows coming to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video next month.

  5. This cockroach-inspired robot will scurry right into your nightmares

    Things that scurry are hard to predict. They're nervous and quick — and no one likes a small, nervous, quick thing. But one robot seems to be going against the grain. It's a cockroach-inspired machine, and it might give you nightmares.

Dummy of the day