Blind Faith in Google

In the world we live in today, we are all about convenience. We want things cheap, fast, and easy. We don't go to McDonalds because their food is high-quality -- we go because they make their food fast and it is cheap. We live in an impatient society. We get frustrated when a video takes more than five seconds to buffer. Similarly, we go insane when our internet is not working as fast as it normally does. We want everything handed to us immediately and easily.

Google makes this happen. It "seems to offer us everything so cheaply, easily, and quickly. But nothing truly meaningful is cheap, easy or quick" as said by Siva Vaidhyanathan in his book titled "The Googlization of Everything" (4). One of the dangers Vaidhyanathan introduces in his book is the fact that because of Google's immediate benefits to us, we are completely dependent on it and have uncritical faith in the most popular internet search engine. So much so that Google thus crowds out other alternatives to finding answers and "may cause us to miss opportunities to do things better" (6). Think about it. Whenever we need information, we immediately think to Google it. You see, Google is so widely used that it's meaning has expanded from a noun to a verb: to Google. We no longer seek other alternatives to retrieving answers or information.

I, myself, am a prototypical example. One such alternative to Google is the library. The library is the place of knowledge, of information. The library is where one goes to find information. Or at least before Google became popular. If I ever step in the library, it is to do homework in an quiet and suitable environment. Not once have I gone to the campus library to find information on a topic for class or anything else for that matter. If I am curious about a topic or need to do research, I "Google" it. You know why? Because I am dependent on Google. I have faith that Google will find me exactly what I need. I have this uncritical faith in Google because it rarely fails me. It has so much information, that I find it impossible to not find something relative to what I am looking for.

And this is one Vaidhyanathan's major concerns -- that we, as a society, will stop looking for other alternatives and become so dependent and loyal to Google that it will make us blind to anything else. Google will continue to have this power over us to the extent that even when Google does something immoral like invade our privacy, we will overlook it. And it is already happening because of our blind faith in this increasingly powerful and popular search engine.