A technology writer Nicholas G. Carr wrote a magazine article named, Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains!. Which was highly integral for the Internet’s effect on our wisdom. The article was published in the July/August 2008 edition of the magazine as a cover story of six-pages.

Nicholas G. Carr major disagreement is that the Internet may have destructive effects on our cognition that decrease the capacity for attention and contemplation. Despite the title, the article is not particularly raised the voice against Google,  but more at the influence of the Internet and the World Wide Web on our brain. Carr improved his argument in a book by the name of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, which was published in June 2010 by W. W. Norton.

A few studies have given peeks into the changing cognitive dependencies of Internet users. A UCLA study directed to wonder whether a breadth of brain activity actually reduced reading and perhaps overburdened the mind; and control decision-making and complex reasoning abilities.

A recent study recommends 90% of us are undergoing digital amnesia. More than 70% of people do not remember their children’s phone numbers by heart, and 49% have not memorized their spouse’s number. Whereas those who brought up in the world of landlines still can recall friends’ home numbers from that time. The Kaspersky Lab determines we do not impose data to memory because of the “Google Effect”. This is safe in the perception that answers are just one click away, and are pleased to behave toward the web like an addition to our own memory.

Dr. Maria Wimber who is a lecturer at the University of Birmingham’s School of Psychology. She served the internet security firm in their research. She speculates the internet completely transforms our strategy of handling and storing information, so the Google Effect “makes us good at remembering where to find a given bit of information, but not necessarily what the information was. It is likely to be true that we don’t attempt to store information in our own memory to the same degree that we used to, because we know that the internet knows everything.”

These discoveries impact Columbia University Professor Betsy Sparrow’s research on the Google Effect on memory, which determined, “Our brains rely on the internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.”

This even expands to photographs. A Fairfield University research in 2003 and found that taking photos decreases our memories. Partakers were asked to explore around a museum, and those who captured photos of each object recalled fewer objects and details about them than those who were simply observing. Dr. Wimber says: “One could speculate that this extends to personal memories, as constantly looking at the world through the lens of our smartphone camera may result in us trusting our smartphones to store our memories for us. This way, we pay less attention to life itself and become worse at remembering events from our own lives.”

The more you depend on the Web or technology., the more you have to fight in order to stay concentrated on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers have also begun complaining about the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently admitted that he has quit reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?

Bruce Friedman, whose blogger, writes about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has changed his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,”. A pathologist who has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School since long, elaborated his thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.

There are some other ways for the technology that how are they playing with our minds.

1) Search Engines Do Not Provide Us Conflicting Perspectives:

If you have a particular assumption and want to find knowledge for your position, Google will provide you with several links to smart-sounding, apparently reasonable evidence strengthens your belief.

In psychological term it is called confirmation bias, it is the human preference to comprehend, filter, and seek out new knowledge in ways that uphold your preexisting beliefs.

It might sound weird, but the Internet has practically become confirmation bias’ best friend.

The technology is now so full of articles and information about everything that you can find credible-sounding people defending virtually any belief imaginable. All you have to do is clicks a few buttons, and Google will take you directly to those people who passionately upholding exactly what you believe.

This effect is strengthened substantially because of another truth that : Google borrows your browsing history and your friends’ recommendations/’likes’ to show you outcomes according to your preferences and your choice.

2) Social Media Feeds Show You What You Want To See:

You might be still under the notion that your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds are displaying you a live stream of everything posted by your friends and by pages you like or follow.

A newsfeed filtering algorithm is actually a computer program that determines which content is going to come out on your newsfeed.

These algorithms possibly consider a number of factors, but as a rule, they display you more of the types of content you have been liking, posted by the same people you have been interacting with. Conceivably, you can realize the bias-confirming effects of this setup.

3) YouTube And Other Sites Suggest Content According To Our Likes:

It has now become a popular strategy of many websites to suggest additional content to info-consumers that are related to newsfeed filtering algorithms, recommendation algorithms indicate more content based on what the viewer has already watched/read/responded favorably to.

In these latest cases, YouTube’s recommendation algorithm simply lead a subject further down whatever rabbit hole they are already having, continually verifying their preexisting world criteria and probably increasing them with more partisan or spurious information.

These are our research on how to google impacting our brain as well as our lives. These technologies are undoubtedly created to benefit us but our reliance on them is actually harming our cognitive cell and making us believe them blindly. If we can able to draw a certain line of dependency we can do better without impacting our lives.