It is believed that the XXI century is the age of information technology. At the moment, digital technologies have affected almost all spheres of human life, they improve its quality, develop industry, medicine and the economy – this is digitalization. One of the socially significant branches of digitalization is the use of Google in a person’s daily life. As an information system built on the basis of global computer networks, Google presents a large number of opportunities that can be used by anyone with access to the Internet. In the current realities, most people use Google for the purpose of entertainment and satisfaction of their leisure needs, and not to gain knowledge and self-development, which causes them to degrade.
Every day more and more people complain about problems with brain activity. Among them, people note the increasing distraction, the inability to concentrate their attention, gather their thoughts to solve some problems, difficulties with memorizing information, the physical inability to read large texts, not to mention books. Moreover, paradoxically, this problem is characteristic not only for the elderly, but also for middle-aged and younger people (Afifi et al. 8). At the same time, many are not even interested in why this happens – they automatically attribute it to stress, fatigue, unhealthy ecology or age, although all this is not the cause. Accelerated loss of brain functions occurs due to frequent use of Google.
The most effective way to provide information to an ordinary Google user is to display information in the form of an inverted pyramid. It is based on the principle of the lower, the less with the mandatory allocation of keywords so that consumers of information understand what is important and what is not very important and the disclosure of no more than one thought per paragraph (Gianfredi et al. 52). This is the only way to keep one’s attention on the page for as long as possible.
Even blog posts with a size of more than three or four paragraphs already seem to most too difficult and tedious to perceive, and therefore boring. The low level of reading and information perception skills among people is falling lower and lower every year. According to the observations of scientists, even people with good reading skills note that after a whole day of using Google, they cannot start a very interesting book, since reading only the first page causes difficulties (Gianfredi et al. 49). Therefore, Google users get used to this form of presentation of information and begin to experience difficulties with the perception or memorization of more capacious texts.
People, due to the lack of interests and hobbies formed in adolescence, do not know how to effectively and usefully manage their time. Thus, the virtual world for people begins to replace the real one, and the network environment affects the personality and morality of young people, the socio-psychological characteristics of the groups represented in it (Zrnka et al. 330). It generates an appropriate style of behavior that goes beyond the limits of what is permissible, formed by society.
The total digitalization of society with the help of Google has a negative impact not only on the mental, but also on the emotional intelligence of people. One of the problems manifests itself at the stage of growing up and raising a child. Parents unconsciously form the habit of Googling their children by uncontrolled access of the child to various devices and the virtual world (Gianfredi et al. 51). This is how one of the very first human addictions is born and a disease that can be called digital degradation begins to manifest itself for the first time.
American pediatricians studied the effect of using a search network on the brain and found out that getting used to the fact that any information is easily and quickly available affects the formation of neural networks of the brain negatively, since its interaction with the outside world is minimized. Contacts with other people and the world around them play a key role in personal development (Gianfredi et al. 46). Google takes away the time that could go with benefits for the brain and as a result, personality development slows down.
Every year people read less and generally use Google not as a way to get cognitive and developmental information, but rather as an alternative platform for recreation. In order to speak out against degradation, it is necessary to instill love and interest in the world around a person from early childhood, try to limit children’s access to online entertainment and the use of Google (Afifi et al. 4). Technologies should expand the horizons of young people’s consciousness, and not slow down development in order to ensure their inner fleeting comfort.
The next problem due to the introduction of Google into human life and the network is total control over society. The world states have at least one more tool for tracking and interfering in the private lives of citizens of their country, which does not always comply with the norms of state constitutions. People often become prisoners of rash actions, and state bodies act as supervisors, thereby restricting freedom of speech within the boundaries of the virtual world (Gianfredi et al. 48). This could be avoided if people were able to control the quality and quantity of information, they left about themselves in Google, which is not always good for them.
Very often, according to various personal data that a company uses, you can say a lot about a person, which indicates the urgent need to develop mechanisms for protecting personal information. While there are no such clear and transparent mechanisms, a person should think about what they write and leave about themselves on the Google network (Tang et al. 2041). First of all, people should realize the value of the time in which they live: today information has become an integral part of everyday life, but it does not always benefit us.
It is necessary to teach the younger generation and learn to use Google themselves for the benefit of their own development, the development of the culture of people, the country and humanity as a whole. It is necessary to try to filter the flow of information that passes through the brain every day while using the search network. I want to believe that, despite all of the above problems of using Google, the world is able to change the situation with its use for the better. The achievements of the last decades and the current generation of young and rapidly developing people will be able to make a tremendous breakthrough not only in scientific understanding, but also in terms of the development of society. The main principle that will help to overcome the degradation caused by the active use of Google should be a reasonable and conscious consumption of information.
Works Cited
Afifi, Mohammed, et al. “The Impact of Deploying the Internet of Things and How Will It Change Our Lives.” Solid State Technology, vol. 64, 2021, pp. 1-8.
Gianfredi, Vincenza, et al. “What Can Internet Users’ Behaviours Reveal About the Mental Health Impacts of The Covid-19 Pandemic? A Systematic Review.” Public Health, vol. 198, 2021, pp. 44-52.
Tang, Chia-Pei, et al. “The Impact of Internet of Things Implementation on Firm Performance.” Telematics and Informatics, vol. 35, 2018, pp. 2038-2058.
Zrnka, Kovačić Petrović, et al. “Internet Use and Internet-based Addictive Behaviours During Coronavirus Pandemic.” Current Opinion in Psychiatry, vol. 35, 2022, pp. 324-331.