Is Google Making Us Stupid?

I read an interesting article the other day. If you want to read it here is the link:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Anyway, what it was basically saying was that using Google is bad because it is making us less likely to read articles and actually look for information when we can just use a search engine and get the answers very quickly. The author mentions that writers such as himself have less of a capability to sit and read anything longer than a paragraph when searching for information (Reading up to a paragraph would be a miracle for people today in my opinion).


Now the first thing that came to my mind was the thought that apparently, Google is not affecting my brain because I am sitting here reading this 7 page article. I just want to mention that I use Google, umm... just about EVERY time I am on the computer. It's my homepage! I visited Google five minutes ago to find the article! And I am probably using Google as you read this right now. But I still read articles and blogs and other things just for the fun of it, so it does not affect everyone.

For anyone who has mustered up the brainpower to continue reading this entry, don't get me wrong. Google is evil, make no mistake about it. But that doesn't mean that I won't take advantage of it's charm. Not to discredit the guy who wrote the article, he made some really good points regarding the perils of the internet, but are you seriously trying to tell me that you would rather live in a world without search engines? I doubt it.