Nearly a decade ago when Google first got on the scene I was just starting my first year of high school. I vaguely remember students and teachers discussing the power and efficiency of this new search engine which would soon change the way we gather information forever but didn’t quite understand until I sued it for myself. What I find the most interesting thing is that growing up, while I was still in high school, we were allowed and partially encouraged to use Google as our source for gathering information for class or an essay.
By the time I got to college, professors highly discouraged the use of Google. They’re reasoning was that a lot of the information that came as a result was not credible, which I completely understand but I still do not feel like it discredit’s Google at all. In the article titled “What a Fair Share in the Age of Google” by Peter Osnos, it describes the co-founders of Google and their vision from the beginning, that information should be free, and of course fast, arriving right at our finger tips the instant we search for key words. I could not possibly agree more with this statement or shall we say idea.
For decades we have paid to receive information through newspapers and magazines which can be biased whether we want to admit or not. It’s no surprise to me that Google is the direct demise of newspapers like the New York Times because there is not one piece of information in their Sunday paper that any person cannot find through the use of Google, even in other countries all over the world. By having such a powerful search engine as Google, people have become their own gate keepers as to what information they want for their lives and when they want it. Nothing is ever out dated and we can search in our own time. Personally, I can’t think of the last time I didn’t use Google for something, even as other search engines have emerged, and I certainly could never imagine living in a world where Google did not exist.