The impact of Google

                If you were to ask anyone what Google was they would automatically know what you were talking about. If you asked them what they used it for, most of them would say everything. The uses of Google differs from searches such as, “Who has won the most Stanley Cups” to “Does the fact that I have not pooped in two days mean I am dying”; the results you would receive are countless. However if you asked them where Google originally started or why it started, they would either look at you like your crazy or say something like, “I don’t know it’s just always been there.”

                Carr talks about how it started because of Larry Page when he attended Stanford to what the future may hold for the very website that almost every person that as ever sat a computer has used. He mentions how, “the lives of Internet companies… tend to be short” regardless of the nature of them (157). And how that someday there might be a new search engine that is “better” and “faster”, and Google might lose its appeal. But I disagree because there are other search engines, such as Yahoo and BING, and yet most people still use Google as their first choose. I agree with a lot of what Carr says in this chapter, Google is a big part of our lives, but there are some things that stay around for a long time, and I think that Google is definitely one of the things that is going to stay around for a long time.

                For so long people have used Google for everything, it is not going to just disappear overnight because a new website pops up out of nowhere. There are things about Google, other than the search bar, that people use. For instance, Google has a translator that can translate anything from sixty-five different languages into one of those languages, or even Google Maps that allows you to look at any point of the world in satellite or street view. Most of the other search engines do not have those types of features that make them more than just a place to look for pictures of cute puppies.

                I have really struggled while reading most of these chapters because I sit there and say, “I really do not care about what you saying Carr.” But for some reason I found this chapter to be a little bit more interesting, not the best thing I read, but still easier to read than most none-the-less. I think that at the beginning of the book Carr focused on the history of how the Internet came about, so it was really boring and no one really wanted to read it, but now I feel as though he is focusing on different parts of the internet that are more important to use than others, so it is becoming easier to get interested in. I, for the most part, agree with what Carr says about how our lives revolve around the internet even though most times I think he is a little dramatic about certain things.

Maggie Hartrey