With the advent of the internet, information is more accessible than ever before. In one quick Google search, a person can learn whatever there is to know about any topic they could think of. On the surface, this may seem like a good thing, and in many ways it is. But with all this information available, people have began to convince themselves that they know more than qualified experts, and this is just not true.
The internet may be making information more readily available, but it’s also affecting the way we think. In his essay, “Is Google Making us Stupid?,” author Nicholas Carr states, “...what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles” (p. 733). People’s brains are becoming used to just skimming information instead of taking the time to read something deeply. Instead of really studying a small amount of information, we’re shifting to just taking in bits and pieces of a lot of information.…show more content… The average person may have access to the same information, but they don’t have the same capacity for serious research that a professional does. The same information may be available to both people, but quickly skimming an article is in no way comparable to the hours of research put in by the experts. In his article, “America’s Cult of Ignorance”, Tom Nichols says “...we now live in a society where the acquisition of even a little learning is the endpoint, rather than the beginning, of education” (p. 6). People are convinced that just because they have the ability to do a little research on a topic, their opinion is as good as that of an
