Exemplification Essay: Is Google Making USupid

Social media brings together the millions of people of earth, it has revolutionized the way we think of pen pals; we are able to communicate with other individuals around the world. Most of all we are able to find others with the same interests as us and befriend them. All though it is wonderful to be able to do this it has also caused a backfire. Joe Keohane, a journalist states in his article “How facts backfire,” that backfire is a phenomenon in which people with a strong set of beliefs will not change their belief even if there are facts given (1). Facts are supposed to enlighten an individual’s opinion not enhance their mistaken one. The internet more importantly social media, has caused a backfire to individuals posting their opinions

Nicholas Carr a journalist and author of four books states in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” that Google is trying to develop the perfect search engine to, “understand exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want” (4). It’s easy to avoid facts that show or even prove that your belief is wrong. If you do not agree with an article that pops up on your Facebook feed you can simply click the hid button and the article will disappear from your news feed. Moreover it works vice versa, if you happen to enjoy an article that praises your opinion you can like it and Facebook will give you similar articles, hence making you more prone to ignore opinions that are against your own. You can also do the same with people’s individual social media accounts. If you agree with a person’s opinions on Twitter, you can follow them and Twitter will give you

Keohane quotes political scientist Brendan Nyhan, researcher for the Michigan Study “The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong” (1). It’s sinister to admit that you were wrong in something that you believe in, and worse to admit it on social media. So an individual wanting to avoid this dilemma will simply find any sort of information that can somehow show that their opinion is right and post it to their social media page, regardless if there are facts to counter it. Even if a person is willing to see information that counters their opinion or someone wants to prove the other wrong, those individuals may not read the facts because the article maybe too long. Carr explains that while using the internet we have lost concentration on deep reading (1). “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb” (Carr 1). As many try to deep read and actually concentrate on the words in front of them it may be too much to take in that they’ll simply stop reading and stick with their opinion. Furthermore if a being posts their opinions on social media anybody anywhere can prove them wrong by sending links to confirmed facts. Together with Carrs observations on our new way of reading, they will ignore the person and their link and jeopardize changing their