One major difference between the many existing generations is the way the internet is used. As years have gone by, the world’s use of the internet has increased as well as how intelligent the internet has become. But with the internet becoming smarter, and providing all the answers at a click of a button, does that make our generation and future generations dumber? 

Over the years many have questioned if the internet is making our society better or worse. Having Google has given us such an advantage in life helping us find information we need for things like school and work. Although many may argue that it’s making us dumber as we are getting information we need quicker but we aren’t keeping it in our brain as we can just look it up again. 

Nicolas Carr, a writer for The Atlantic wrote an article titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, and Carr argues, “When we give in to the natural impulses to click and skim, rather than to read and think, the Internet may actually be doing us a disservice: It shortens our attention spans and even inhibits our ability to read longer books and articles.” Carr mentioned this in a podcast on NPR made by The Bryant Park Project. 

“If you think about it, we use Google all the time to look up things we sometimes don’t even need to know. Lailah Bickling, a 10th grader says when asked how many times she googles something a day, “Probably like 10 times minimum.” 

Megan Goodrich, a freshman agreed and guessed at how many times she Googles a question, “I don’t probably about 8 to 10 times a day”.

Although it is very hard to determine if those Google searches are necessary or not. And if they absolutely are, is it making us any dumber?

“I think there is nothing wrong with using Google as a resource. Although you need to learn how to evaluate a resource. As well as you need to be mature enough to learn when and how you should use it,” said Computer Programming and Math teacher, Becky Byer.  

So maybe the answer to the question is Google is not making us dumber as it is able to give us multiple resources that we are able to quickly find, but the people who are not intelligent enough to know they shouldn’t skim through articles and look up things they need are getting dumber. So all in all Google is a perfect resource if you know how to use it correctly.