The Power of Google

Google is a tool that everybody uses to find information. I use this site probably around ten to twenty times a day (when I’m purposely not looking for any real information). I use Google to enter in websites I want to get to rather than type in the URL because the link comes up faster for me. Every time I have a question I do not know the answer too I always say, “just Google it”. This search engine has changed a lot about how we surf the web and even how we collect research. People are addicted to how fast the information we ask for appears before our eyes to impending questions we have. Information about anything is literally at our finger tips no matter where we go. With the use of smart phones, any person could gather large quantities of information in just minutes with a few key strokes of their thumbs. Without Google, information gathering would be slower and very much less efficient.

Google is a large company that is, “nearly obsessed with efficiency” (Carr 153). Google is also the most popular website in the world, and owns other very famous websites such as YouTube. Google created the AdWord system to turn out a profit from all the traffic the site was achieving. After introducing this system, Google’s profits grew astronomically to the point where they began to turn some serious profit off everyone’s casual Google search. I agree with Carr in saying that Google’s intent is not only to supply us with information at the speed of lightning, but is “the business of distraction” (157). Google wants to be used to increase their traffic, to increase the clicks on ads, to increase their profit. Google is very useful in the fact that I can find virtually anything I’m looking for, but it almost seems too much for me to handle.

Even sites such as Facebook are being threatened by Google because of the launch of and Google Plus (which allows people to connect with certain groups of friends and live chat with others). Google’s own branch into the social networking world has given this company to expand exponentially. This company is almost too big. Google wants to make virtually anything searchable through the internet, including print such as books and magazines. Although the benefits of having everything searchable online are obvious and make life easier, it also takes away from the actual work being put into it. If someone writes a book and spends copious amounts of time on it all for it to turn into a book online, where their words can merely be searched rather than read is sad. Being able to look up a specific argument in a book is easier for the researcher, but completely takes away the work that was being put into the book in the first place. Also, if people are just taking little bits from books are merely making assertions of what the original writer may have had in mind when making his or her point. 

Alexandra O'Brien