[Google's] White bread for young minds, says university professor

London Times ^ | January 14, 2008 | Alexandra Frean, Education Editor

[Aristotelian]

Google is “white bread for the mind”, and the internet is producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information, a professor of media studies will claim this week.

In her inaugural lecture at the University of Brighton, Tara Brabazon will urge teachers at all levels of the education system to equip students with the skills they need to interpret and sift through information gleaned from the internet.

She believes that easy access to information has dulled students’ sense of curiosity and is stifling debate. She claims that many undergraduates arrive at university unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet.

“I call this type of education ‘the University of Google’.

“Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments.

[Aristotelian]

This is the silliest analysis by an academic that I've read in some time. First, to the extent that students can't differentiate between good and bad information, it is the fault of the school system that trained them (or failed to). Schools are supposed to provide students with touchstones against which to judge information, theories, claims, etc. But in today's age of moral relativism and multiculturalism, schools no longer teach hard and fast rules. Second, the Internet is a marvelous invention that serves to open peoples' minds, to educate and edify, and to allow limitless intellectual exploration and stimulation. To claim the Internet is producing dullards is nonsense.

[Rennes Templar]

Many things on the net may produce dullards, but google isn’t one of them.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Just watch. If Google ever decides that all conservative speech qualifies as "hate speech" and is to be stifled, this academic will quickly change her tune, and sing the praises of Google.

Sounds far-fetched, but don't forget what China was able to do a few years back.

[r9etb]

This is the silliest analysis by an academic that I've read in some time.

I think not.

[dr_who_2]

This is probably coming from the sort of "academic" who has an agenda and thinks that indoctrination is "education". "Curiosity" and "thinking" means filling kids heads with propaganda and encouraging them to feel a certain way about something and help to propagate agitprop. Free access to information is very threatening to those sorts of people. If it doesn't come from the approved reading materials, it's bad. If a student learned it without the "assistance" of said teacher, he knows nothing.

[Socratic]

This is the silliest analysis by an academic that I've read in some time.

I don't know. If I Google "Hillabitch," some references take me to porno spots. Could this be right?

[Mears]

The internet has been marvelous for old folks like me.

I don’t know how I’d get by without it.

Through Google I found an auto accessory I didn’t even know existed. A few key words and——voila!!!!

[doc30]

This is the silliest analysis by an academic that I've read in some time. First, to the extent that students can't differentiate between good and bad information, it is the fault of the school system that trained them (or failed to).

No. Looking stuff up on the net can give very misleading results. High school students have not yet formed that ability to readily distinguish the wheat from the chaff on the internet. The internet has given every crackpot, malcontent with an agenda, quack salesmen with whacked products and the just plain delusional easy dissimilation of their ideas. I've even seen it by people here on FR. Someone was advocating coffee enemas as a health treatment. Other people here claim the sun orbits the earth and they all have internet research to back them up.

[Mariner]

Academia is concerned their stranglehold on information and knowledge is being broken.

They are ALSO VERY CONCERNED that with broadband, there's no reason a professor in Bangalore can't teach Biology 210 or Physics 301.

[Inyo-Mono]

Same here, though I’m just a kid (only 57). Finding rare parts for autos, cameras, camping equipment, etc. on the web is fantastic.

[rlmorel]

This, coming from the group of people who told us for decades and indoctrinated us (along with the media) that Joseph McCarthy was an evil man, chasing phantom communists and ruining people in the process.

Personally, I like my chances at being able to differentiate and process information gleaned from the Internet rather than having it spoon-fed to me from ideologues like her who have an agenda.

[bannie]

[Beowulf9]

I’ve actually gotten more informed since the net, and Google’s a part of that. I regularly look up definitions on it, books connected to subjects I’m interested in (17th century books) information about politics, news, etc.

Google is a help in all this.

[Prokopton]

She claims that many undergraduates arrive at university unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet.

Unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material? Sounds like a typical professor or global warming dupe.

[WoofDog123]

“The internet has been marvelous for old folks like me.”

I agree wholehearted, but we did develop the skill set to research and disseminate a much more limited (usually) data pool when we were younger.

Kids today can and do google their homework in many subjects, and even worse, schools have often just given up trying to actively prevent wholesale plaguerism in homework assignments.

Blame the schools, blame whomever, but the bottom line is that many kids today are turning in work where they cut and pasted the info, never had to write or process it, and thus aren’t learning it.

[ThomasThomas]

Google freerepublic and see if the information is that of a dullard.

[spanalot]

“unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet. “

Hah!!! so thats it - only anecdotal and unsubstantiated info on the internet.

What a marxist.

[Right Wing Assault]

So, I google “white bread minds” and guess what comes up first? This thread! So, even Brabazon herself is white bread for everyone! Is she so stupid not to realize this?

Good work, professor. Everything YOU say will become white bread for everyone, too. Hilarious!

[Peter Libra]

Second, the Internet is a marvelous invention that serves to open people's minds, the educate and edify and to allow limitless intellectual exploration and stimulation.

The Internet and indeed Google is, after all another tool which with the public has been gifted. Like many new inovations it is in the usage that counts.

My ordering and purchase of books has increased considerably since having a PC. Though I am a regular at our local public library, there are books that just would never have been noticed. In addition it is likely that the public library would not carry them. The bookstore will not even display them- as far as I can see. Happily, that bookstore will order them efficiently.

An example is:
The New Dealers War. (FDR and the war within World War II) Thomas Fleming.
Blacklisted by History (The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy And His Fight Against America's Enemies). M.Stanton Evans.

I am now wading through the first one and ordered the second one today. All this because of FR posters mention or recomendations. On the first words on the telegraph by Samuel Morse ie: "What hath God Wrought?"

What hath God wrought indeed.

[Right Wing Assault]

Looking stuff up on the net can give very misleading results.

Looking up stuff in books can give very misleading results, too. Asking people questions can give very misleading results, too. Reading Free Republic can give very misleading results, too.