MITS6011: Google's Influence on Human Cognition - A Research Report

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report analyzes Google's impact on human brains.

MITS6011 Research Assessment

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Abstract............................................................................................................................................4

Introduction
This research focuses to find out the role and impact of Google on human brains. With the
advancement in the technologies, the internet became an integral part of our lives and Google
became the most popular search engine. Google has now become highly personalized, cross-
device and so advanced that a human can talk to it to get answers to his questions. Along with it,
the simple design of Google home page made it Interactive and easy to use. It provides users
with the best possible answers (Halavais, 2017). Every day human beings use Google to get
thousands of solutions to their problems. As everyone including the students, employees or
business persons rely on the Google search engine to find a quick fix to their problems. Google
search engine has become most popular by providing the best results within a few seconds.
Google is embedded in every field and everybody's life. Therefore it's crucial to identify the
impacts it has whether Positive or negative on a person's life. Google has a huge impact on
human brains and it has also affected the memory power of a human being. Google search
engine has molded the way a human brain remembers things. The Internet has established its
presence in human brains. People are now relying more on the internet and Google search
engines than on books. The human brain is now confident that it will find the answer online on
Google (Wegner & Ward, 2013). Even students nowadays are relying on Google giving less
priority to remembering things. Google effect has also changed the way humans think. Therefore
the primary aim of this research is to find out the reason behind this impact of Google, what are
the positive and negative impacts of Google on human beings and the answer the research
question stated above. The research claims that the human beings are becoming more and more
dependent to use Google instead of memorizing things and learning them because Google has
advanced technologies such as machine learning algorithms etc. to result in the best possible
solution to a searched problem. Therefore it has affected brains of human beings; now they are
relying more on Google. The space used in the brain for thinking and memorizing has now been
taken away by Google search engine as everyone does their storing and thinking part outside
their brains. The methodology adopted for this research is quantitative approach by preparing a
questionnaire for a survey. The survey will be based on the following aspects; how people rely
on Google while memorizing something? How do they remember something when they still
have access to Google? Etc. Also what people have to think about this question has been found.

The survey has been designed in such a way that each question aims to find out the role Google
has been playing in a person's day to day life. Also, it contains questions to know how much one
person is relying on Google instead of his/her own brain to find an answer to something. The
importance of this research lies in the way Google can be used to have only the positive impact
on human beings so that Google can be used as an assistant for any information but not
completely replaced for books and other information sources. Google should be used as a source
of information only, completely relying on it is making human beings and students especially,
less innovative. The learning process of students has reduced as there is one place for all possible
questions. The eagerness to learn something by making continuous efforts has somewhat
replaced by Google by giving exact answers within a tap of a button (Van Dijck, 2010). The
research has aimed to find out what people think about this topic, what are their assumptions.
Surveying various people belonging to every age group and every profession has also helped to
find out what role Google has to play in various areas of technology and business. Also, what
will be the disadvantages if all the learning that is made from Google nowadays is eliminated?
As there are various negative impacts also what should be the measures taken to completely
remove the disadvantages at a greater extent. So that Google is the most important and helpful
search engine can be utilized to serve the people and to help them and not to take away the
learning process from human beings.

Abstract
The research conducted aims to find the impact Google search engine has on human beings and
their brains. The motivation for conducting this research came from identifying the need for
Google in one's day to day life. This field of study is important for all who are daily users of the
Google search engine. This report is intended to everyone who has been affected by Google in a
good or a bad way. The research conducted has answered all the questions as to why people rely
on Google instead of finding answers on their own, what are the positive impacts it had on one's
brain at the same time focuses on negative impacts that it has made also how it changed the way
human think and memorize things now. This research paper is aimed to address all the negative
impacts that Google has on the brains of human beings and also to analyze the positive impacts
that it has made on a person's day to day life. Also how to negative impacts can be changed to
positive impacts by applying corrective measures. Scope of this research is to collect the findings
for the stated research question which is what is the role and impacts of Google on human
beings? The research claims that the human beings are becoming more and more dependent to
use Google instead of memorizing things and learning them because Google has advanced
technologies such as machine learning algorithms etc. to result in the best possible solution to a
searched problem. Therefore it has affected brains of human beings; now they are relying more
on Google. The space used in the brain for thinking and memorizing has now been taken away
by Google search engine as everyone does their storing and thinking part outside their brains.
The methodology conducted for this research is quantitative methodology because this answer to
this research question lies in the way people are using it nowadays. Further by taking a survey of
people, the impact of Google on their brain has been found. The outcomes found from the survey
align with the hypothesis that Google has replaced the human brain's power to store and retain
things. Instea of of memorizing something, people are now more focused on how and where this
information can be found out on Google (Burguet, Caminal & Ellman, 2015). The outcomes
generated were highly predictable but it also can be seen that from human beings point of view
that they are not getting negatively impacted by Google, but Google has advanced their thinking
capabilities by providing numerous solutions to a single problem. Also, humans believe that
Google has made their lives easier and advanced.

References
Wegner, D. M., & Ward, A. F. (2013). How Google is changing your brain. Scientific
American, 309(6), 58-61.
Van Dijck, J. (2010). Search engines and the production of academic knowledge. International
journal of cultural studies, 13(6), 574-592.
Halavais, A. (2017). Search engine society. John Wiley & Sons.
Burguet, R., Caminal, R., & Ellman, M. (2015). In Google we trust?. International Journal of
Industrial Organization, 39, 44-55.