Just two weeks ago I had to hold a discussion on the impact of Google in front of the class.
Google in this case refers to the internet in general. You see, Google has essentially impacted our lives so much that people start associating it to the world wide web despite it being launched only 4-5 years AFTER Yahoo! – a search engine we thought was such a big deal. Disagree? Now just how many times have you used the term “Google” when you supposedly mean you need to look something up?
When I did my research I stumbled onto Nicholas Carr’s renowned article about Google (titled the same as this post). I can’t help but to agree – Google is indeed making us think less and more dependent on it for information. It’s like, our depth of thinking never expanded since the we started relying on the internet for answers. We assume it knows everything, and sites like Answers.com and Ask___.com aren’t helping either.
I have personally come across students posting their discussion topics/questions (supposedly given by their school teachers) online. By that I mean, seriously the entire question copied and pasted. Only a handful of the respondents realised his laziness and refused to share the answer. But majority of them actually painstakingly did! It was surprising, and that also proves how the internet has slowly led to the reduction of hard work we put in our research.
And another thing that Carr pointed out was our attention span when it comes to reading. I bet many of us experience that as we’d merely skim through long articles. For myself, I wouldn’t go beyond 4 paragraphs if it isn’t about sex, crime or anything else newsworthy. It would be a torment to read ONE page of text. That’s because internet has allowed us to CHOOSE from a wide variety of information. We click on the first few search results on Google and exit the pages less than 5 minutes after we enter them – solely because they don’t have what we wanted. As a result the way we read suffers and you’d probably find yourself losing focus after awhile. If you never realised that, think back about that one time you were studying for a test. Didn’t you get fidgety after reading a few sentences?
Now with Twitter it seems to worsen the matter. Because of its 140-word only policy, we find ourselves accustomed to reading short texts. So when lecturers need you to read 3 pages from a textbook it’d be equivalent to shooting you in the head. At this rate, textbooks would have to be HEAVILY simplified so that they don’t bore students so easily. We want the details to come *snaps* FAST. So.. really, would engaged readers eventually cease to exist?
However to be fair, we also need to look at the other side of the coin. Without the internet, we’d still be living in our own world, not knowing what is happening around us. With Apocalypse (natural disasters, global warming etc) approaching, we need to equip ourselves with knowledge to survive. And the Internet has helped us a lot in this aspect. We also need to constantly adapt to changes. So in other words, the Internet COULD HAVE also made us smarter in another way.
Some argue that ultimately how much we use the Internet is within our control. It’s our responsibility – which I, too, agree.
So what’s your take in this? If I have to make a stand, I’d say yes – Google does make us stupid. But I’m willing to be stupid as long as it keeps me alive.
First day was just checking into our resort rooms, ordering of room service, playing Monopoly Deal and planning of activities for subsequent days. Nothing much.. I just knew we were entitled to breakfast buffet for the 3 days of our stay there. Thankfully for baby and I, our room was BIG, well-furnished and clean. Hehe!
Baby and I woke up pretty late the next morning so we only had like, 30 minutes left for breakfast buffet? It was still the fasting period for Muslims so I half expected the food to be a bit blant.. cos you know, muslim chefs couldn’t taste the food and make them right.. BUT surprise surprise! Food was SPLENDID although it was only buffet! Their croissants would be one of the things on top of their scramble eggs that would make me visit Desaru again. You had to toast them yourself and trust me, the CRISP of the croissant was just awesome. I felt like a Queen having breakfast there lah and we practically had it facing the beach. Aww man, life was damn good I swear!! We had the same food (NOT SICK OF IT DEFINITELY!!) for two days. Amongst the good breakfast food we had were baked beans, chicken sausage and some other stuff which I’ve forgotten.
After our first meal we headed to the crocodile farm by car! We were the only visitors there and had to pay RM10 on top of our admission fee (forgot how much) for a guided tour. The farm.. honestly, had nothing much except if you’re a huge fan of crocodiles. It’s an eye-opener for me because I could hold a baby croc with my BARE HANDS! Awesome or what? Teehee.. The skin was so smooth and soft and.. You get the idea!!
We also learned that the crocodiles there consume 
Right after crocodile farm was fruit farm! We wanted to try go-kart but it was pouring on our way there so plans changed. Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t the “right” season to visit the fruit farm because durians have ripe and eaten up! What’s left on the durian trees are some miserable-looking under-ripe durians 😦 Sigh! Maybe baby and I will go on a durian trip at Malaysia again! Tour guide was informative and helpful too. Thumbs up! But what made me miss the fruit farm was however, NOT the fruits but the mini zoo in there. Haha I kindda neglected the animals there for the goats! Awww I’ve never touched and fed so many goats in my life 🙂 But you have to pay a meagre sum to feed those poor things.. RM1.00 for a stalk of grass. I think the caretaker noticed that I enjoyed feeding them so much that he gave me a free stalk on my next purchase! SO NICE OF HIM!! Therefore RM2 for 3 stalks altogether. Yay, happy girl was me. 🙂
We had to be on a ship to watch the fireflies because those pretty little things were hidden among the bushes surrounded by the waters. So our tour guides had to literally alarm those flies by splashing water towards the bushes. Within a second, the bushes lit up like Christmas trees! Sparkle sparkle, so nice!! And the best part was, they even captured some flies with their hands and GAVE THEM TO US! That night, I held so many blinking flies with my bare hands! It felt like a fairytale and it was a wonderful experience that P5 camp never gave me 🙂 The outing lasted for about 30 minutes? Well spent! It was a pity they didn’t provide us bottles to catch the flies (I know it’s a cruel thought but they are TOO PRETTY to resist!!). That would make an AWESOME souvenir. Hahaha But I think by the time we reach our resort, it would be dead. 😦
At night was the BEST part. We had dinner at this restaurant (weird that we couldn’t locate it on our second day using GPRS) which was owned by these Malaysians whom we felt were Singaporeans. Hahaha.. They had this claim on their signboard that they were voted BEST FOOD by Singaporeans.. so ah, cannot doubt their standard right? We had a SUMPTUOUS meal there which included CRABS! Woohoo, life was so good!! AHHHHH
fionaseah.com 