Monday, December 27, 2010

Is Google Making Me Lazy?


Is Google turning me into a Lazy programmer? Something tells me no, that it is just a tool that aid my productivity. There is no way having at your finger tips, the access to almost the entire index of the web, make you lazy; it is a good reference I can fall back on when my memory fails me. Right?

Right. It should not be a problem only that I just feel as if my memory now fails me more often than before. Not that I am getting amnesic, I sure do remember stuffs, the general concept of things, the procedures, but when it comes to stacking in my memory the exact syntax or steps of an algorithm or a procedure...well I sort of outsourced that functionality off to Google.

I don’t even make the effort of remembering the idiosyncrasies of frameworks or tools I use, since I know with a Google Search, the docs come up.

Is this in itself a bad thing? In fact has my productivity not increased with the help of Google? And wasn’t Albert Einstein credited to have said he does not know the numerical value of the speed of light; that why should he stack up such information in his head, when he can quickly retrieve it from an encyclopaedia.

So is the question warranted? Is Google making me Lazy? I would have to say no. My heavy reliance on Google's Index of the web, I would say aids my productivity. There are tons of things I have been able to achieve and achieve in a shorter amount of time because I was able to make a Google search.

So I guess my fears are just unwarranted.Right? But something tells me “what if I get thrown into a civilization where I have no access to the internet”? Well again, I think that thought, that very thought itself is unwarranted. :)

So why then did i write this post? I guess am not convinced :(

2 comments:

Notey said...

Hmmn, quite relevant musings. Though this piece is in connection with IT, generally, we look to google and other search engines for answers we may have been able to provide with a little more brain work. Google may not make you lazy but it sure limits your brain capacity...

Tunde Opaleye said...

you're not alone :) i guess we will remember the important things as we regularly execute similar projects...and if u find urself in a non-internet area, wake up from the nightmare...lol (esp. if u don't save offline) ;)