Is critical thinking being outsourced to Google?

Is 'Thinking' being outsourced to Google?

I would like to share a 'funny' that happened on too much dependence on technology ...yours truly was sending out a mail from my lap top programmed to entertain spell check...wanted to send DEEP REGARDS to an esteemed Client and ended up being corrected as DEEP RODS....he he eh....Imagine the offense the esteemed client would have taken. I rest my case on advocating exercising the mind before running to technology for help.

One of my favorite questions to a youngsters - How many Thai restaurants are in Delhi NCR ? How would you try and find that out?  Responses have varied, but here are some which are fairly common for the Millennial Generation:

"So, like, can I use my phone internet ???? Can I call someone who has a computer?" No, you don't have a phone. "Hmm... can I walk to an internet cafe?" There are no cafes here. "My friend is a hospitality industry expert I could ask her". There is no phone booth here to call her or send her mail from. ....and so it goes. Most never reach the point at which they actually begin to solve the problem. They are too busy trying to find out how they can get to someone who might get them to Google!

The next time you ask a Teenager a difficult question, notice how quickly they reach for their phones. The phone is an extension of their mind.Thinking needs imagination, insight, and even thinking outside the box. What is far more common nowadays, is thinking "in the box" - which in this case, is the "box" in your pocket (your smartphone) or even in your hand (tablet). 

If Google can answer it - why should I know? I don't need to know, because Google knows! That space in the head, and the critical skills which working a problem bring to the fore - may be under some threat. This should concern us. There are some really smart folks in Silicon Valley from this same generation who are inventing remarkable technology, and in turn are making this world a more connected and hence a more informed place - a better place. But there seems to be a large segment of that same generation - the teen agers who are just as comfortable outsourcing critical thinking to the smart devices which they own. 

 

Another manifestation of this 'Google It' syndrome is a total lack of focus. Span of attention is now being lived in very small segments as we multitask through a plethora of competing distractions in the form of virtual games and interactions on social sites. This is turn makes sustained focus on one issue much more difficult and is bordering on a lost art. We live in a time where everything important needs to be said in 140 characters or less, and then we move on. Some studies have shown that it can take us between 4-8 minutes before we can refocus after a distraction.

However to be fair to Internet and Google and granting/according it the great facilities it brings in to us - More analysis and studies of these phenomenon will need to be done before any long term trends can be identified with any precision. Was a previous generation just as alarmed when calculators first became ubiquitous? Did they worry that math would become a lost art?

Any which ways - It would be a good and balanced strategy to resist the tendency to reach for Google at the drop of a hat and try and put together your own thoughts first and the run a check through on Google later as a reinforcement - this way the critical thinking habit will be preserved and the muscle of the mind exercised. What do you say dear Teens ? Parents ? Let us program our children to reach-out to their minds first rather than their internet enabled smart phones/Tablets.Computers.....

Uncle Teen - HR Power House