What Googling anything is doing — To Us not For Us
The answer is unsettling
Google (replace it with your preferred search engine) is a lifesaver for billions around the world. For information on anything in the universe — any topic of interest, news or entertainment, looking for somebody or something, word-meanings, spellings to pronunciation, school work or home assignments, travel destinations or flight timings, not to mention uncountable ‘how to do this or make that’, from kindergarten kids to scholars and research scientists, managers to CEOs we all inevitably turn to Google to search for answers.
All pervasive, seemingly omnipotent and increasingly indispensable, the ability to google is truly a boon. The post Google generation cannot possibly fathom life without Google, or imagine how it actually was before Google was born. Those of us born before 1988 (who were more than 10 years old when Google was founded) can truly attest to the importance and usefulness of Google. Going through school and college without Google, for us to find out simple things like what an abbreviation meant, how to make a paper boat, recommendations on what books to read, looking for a movie or album of that song one enjoyed playing on the radio, were an uphill endless struggle. Getting relevant information on topics of interest took up a significant amount of our time and energy and only the lucky ones would succeed to have all their queries answered correctly, if at all.
Having said that, I would like to focus on the flip side to this easy access to having any and every information on your fingertips. The instant need to first look it up online (googling it) before applying our own mind to any task at hand. It is a huge handicap because without even noticing, our minds start picking cues, gathering ideas and impressions from the search results. Imperceptibly, yet definitely it sets us thinking on the pattern and direction of what we browsed. Our brains are primed towards whatever we saw and read. While we may get answers to queries at lightning speed, almost effortlessly, in essence googling takes away from us the ability to think afresh, along new perspectives, see things from different and novel angles, all in all to be unique. Besides it makes us lazy and laid back.
Let me be clear, I am in no way arguing that we stop googling or that anyone who does it is necessarily guilty of plagiarism. Honestly though, it does have an inordinately large influence on our thinking and writing and therefore on the content and quality of our work. An amazingly useful and convenient tool for all, students particularly resort to it as the preferred shortcut when working on academic assignments or co-curricular projects. Helpful as googling is, it is also an impediment to producing original work.
The harm it causes is significant and longer lasting than the benefit provided, by allowing students to bypass the necessary time, hard work and deep thought needed to explore and develop ideas, clearly articulate and communicate them. Googling is seriously compromising the ability to assess, analyse, review, be creative, possibly even to innovate.
Unbeknownst to us, having Google as the engine to our train of thoughts, snatches away our ability to think originally. It may get the immediate job done but in the long term it will cost us dear. For students and youth at present, it is easy to search, cut-paste googled answers, edit a bit and claim the output as their own work, the consequences of doing so unfortunately would be distressing.
Effective communication skills and problem-solving capability are both directly affected by googling for easy answers. Describing with brevity and precision a situation or challenge, coming up with varied and various solutions and succinctly summarizing those options for colleagues and teammates will be essential workspace skills in the 21st century. More the dependence on googling, greater the risk of depriving students from fully developing this capacity.
What can be done:
Consumer or Creator:
Ask yourself what would you like to be — just a consumer forever or an active creator of content. The ability to be a CREATOR and not just a Consumer of content, to summarise a problem, express yourself clearly, to make your point lucidly, get your message across would be very important in the future. Careers will be shaped and opportunities shall come through skills that allow you to be innovative and unique. Anyone who can create useful, readable, watchable, relatable, valuable and saleable content will be in demand — as a corporate professional or a independent consultant. To top it all there will be the satisfaction of having unknown people appreciate you, keen to follow your lead, to lean into your ideas, to possess, produce and share the designs and products you create.
Scouring for Data versus Seeking Inspiration:
If you are simply looking for facts and figures, googling is the best option. Proceed to reliable sites quoting data from verified sources, go ahead and feel free to use them. But if you intend to work on designs, ideas, innovations, creative writing, tasks requiring critical thinking and imagination, then googling as the first resort is definitely not a great idea, as long as you wish to be authentic and true to self.
As a trainer, I am sometimes despaired to find several students turn in assignments directly copied from the Internet. An assignment I regularly ask for as part of the Critical Thinking course I conduct for graduate students is to write a review of the 1957 film 12 Angry Men — specifically asking them to not include the plot, instead focusing on the important lessons learnt by them from the movie. I am not surprised that they check a few online reviews before writing their own, but to copy directly, almost word-for-word, without applying their brains in the least bit is disheartening. More than a few students have used phrases like “the most enlightened elements of our Constitution” or “reveals the workings of our constitution” in their submissions — the key word here being ‘our’, written by Indian students when referring to an American movie. It would be excusable if it was only a silly mistake made by a student in a tearing hurry to overlook the obvious error to avoid delaying the submission beyond the deadline. The number of times this is repeated and the number of students making the same mistake however invalidate that explanation. The availability of ready answers dissuades them from devoting necessary time and hard work to the task — not the ideal way to prepare for professional life.
How much more difficult would ideation be compared to writing a film review. There is no harm in googling purely for inspiration. But one must keep in mind that for work requiring higher order thinking — like preparing reports, data analysis, predicting trends, making presentations, formulating strategies and all other ingenuity-focused work — the compulsion to Google will result in you inexorably following the trail set by Google. Google will always be the leader and you will merely be an blundering follower.
Pen is mightier (and more helpful) than googling:
I have suffered from the unthinking dependence on googling to understand the pernicious influence it has been making on my ability to think and write.
Now, whenever I am writing an article, finalising the topic for given content, preparing a PowerPoint presentation or designing training sessions, I simply sit with a pen and paper to first organise my thoughts and put down my ideas into words. Later when I am typing out what I wrote, I of course look online for meanings, synonyms, better fitting phrases that describe what I want to say. While it seems difficult at first and sometimes takes longer than the time allotted, when I finish, I know in my heart and can say with a clear conscience that this is what I wanted to say and in these are my thoughts and feelings. I can proudly lay claim to the content so developed and it fills me with a sense of happiness and satisfaction that comes from work well done with requisite effort having been put in.
My advice to students, please do not let the quest for a few more marks on the answer sheet adversely affect your ability to think independently, without first googling. Since there are billions of gigabytes of information available on the Internet, it is improbable that even the best, most experienced and widely read teachers would know it all. In consequence, your work, produced by referring to Google and building up from the bits that appear in the search results — may appear impressive and sometimes even novel (at least to those who haven’t been exposed to the same content either online or offline), it would inevitably restrict your potential from fully developing and adversely affect a core competence you will sorely need in future.
Best wishes and happy mindful googling.
