google is not god !!!!

If we look at our daily life, from morning to evening, we all do that common activity called searching. As a human we are information driven creatures. We search for things which already exist or which are not known to us and thus, there exists an important relation between our desires, curiosity, laziness, abilities (or even inabilities) and information searching technologies, popularly known as the search engines.

Search engines for me has become an accurate tool to measure desires and intentions of society at large for example“Kartina is most searched (desired) celebrity”, “how to kiss”, “how to get pregnant” etc.  Search engines are so iteratively developed piece of coding and that it has become reflection of human obsessiveness with information. They now not just limited to retrieval of information but also extended to “suggest” what you should retrieve.

None of my friends in IT sector are answer accurately how much time they used Google, Bing or search engine in a week, answer I got is most frequently but it was lacking in numbers. It clearly shows that how we take this technology for granted and how it is making us lame in terms of remembering information. For Another instance let’s take simple behavior of searching a word on Google… we have forgot that oxford is really working hard to promote its dictionaries.  Of course, it makes our work easy and fast but we should not neglect Sid effects of technologies.

My educators often request me and my friends to avoid search engines for studying and I think all (good) educators across the globe might doing same. The concern over searched information is accuracy and validity. For me it’s different , what we get from search is information, not knowledge and as I already mentioned that searching is making us lame in terms of memory, in obvious manner we tend to lack in knowledge and our thinking and analytical abilities get down. Most of search engines have also started providing analytical facilities which is claimed as user friendly but in real sense is making users dependable, lazy and armed chair creatures, obsessed with information and lacking in critical thinking abilities.

Another issue with search engines is “digital divide”, those who are expert in searching and those who are not. Those who are experts, have less chances to get information while those who are not experts leads to inaccurate and false information. This raises serious concern for kids who are new internet and uses search engines to do their homework. They often misguided to false or unnecessary information for example hitting on sponsored links or getting attracted by images shown as suggestions etc.

Searching is common human tendency, but it should be accompanied with intellect and consciousness about side effects caused by it technologies used for it. I would like to suggest some measures which, if taken can avoid side effect search engines.

• Search engines gives information not knowledge, be conscious
• Frame good query, to get accurate results
• Be aware about sponsored links
• Avoid using search engines unnecessarily, don’t be dependent
• Analyze information by yourself; your mind can do it better than Google
• Use bookmarks, its easy and fast
• Teach kids to search properly, it’s like give good quality of food to keep them healthy
• Don’t only search, explore; if it is not on first page, it can be on other page
• Remember sites, don’t allow machine to take over your memory
• Finally, don’t think Google as good