I recently stumbled across an excellent article in The Atlantic magazine by the renowned commentator Nicholas Carr, which I thought was just brilliant. The article taps into something that I often say in jest -- as no doubt most of us must do -- every time we access our computers: how on earth did we actually manage before Google?
When I think about the way that I have all the information that I could possibly want at my fingertips, it just staggers me to think of the PG (or 'Pre-Google') world. For example, I recently heard an interview on Radio Four's Today programme in which Boris Johnson (our esteemed Mayor for London), spoke about the forthcoming 2012 Olympic Games. The presenter asked Boris about the positioning of the Olympics and what it would mean to Londoners. His lengthy quote inspired me and I wished to borrow this for use in a client presentation I had later in the week. But, of course, I couldn't remember all of it so off I went on a Google search, typing the precise keywords; 'Boris Johnston The Today Show Olympic Interview' -- and it popped up right away! Not only did the BBC have the interview logged online but the entire transcript of the conversation had been made available to download. Simple. Brilliant.
But what Carr enquires in his article is whether this ease of access is really beneficial to us. In the short term it certainly was for me, because it helped assist me with my client presentation. Though in the longer term I'm not so sure. It got me thinking…
Thanks to Google we don’t need to really need to remember anything anymore -- we just need to remember the gist of something, a few key words, a thought -- and then know how to search for the answer.
So what do we have to know anymore? Maybe nothing.
Or to be more precise, we just need to remember an odd snippet of information about something and then be lucky enough to have access to Google to be able to complete the knowledge process. I am now becoming more and more convinced that all this fingertip knowledge seems to be changing that way that my brain works. To elaborate further, I now work in a 'jump style', where I begin with a thought or premise or idea and then 'jump' onto Google! Jump to a link. Then jump to a video. Jump to another link. Click through, Del.icio.us it, blog it, pass it on and then jump off. I find it harder to concentrate on a long article as I am always skimming and jumping about. We truly are the cut and paste generation, continually power-browsing between website, blog post and video upload. Carr talks about this 'jump style' phenomenon in his article, remarking:
'What the net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.'
The trouble is that we are now forced to move so quickly and navigate through the enormous ocean of information that we almost can't help but skim along the surface. Are we potentially seeing a profound cognitive shift? Could it be that the more that we surf, the more we use the web, the more that we will have trouble with staying focused on the question in hand and therefore we’ll have less actual wisdom as a consequence? The poet TS Eliot once wrote (rather prophetically back in 1934) that:
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
I think that through Eliot's prose we can ask ourselves some big questions: Whilst we've gained access to knowledge and information, have we actually lost our wisdom?
Perhaps through the democratisation of information, Google actually is making us stupid.
Amelia Torode is head of digital strategy, VCCP.
