The downside of Googling

[Bentley Bullet]

It's great to get information at the click of a few keys nowadays, especially for us old buggers who used to spend hours or even days, researching through books and encyclopaedias to find stuff.

But it does have a downside, and I reckon it could be a serious one.

We were discussing at work the other day when the last time was that any of us actually racked their brain to recall something that had slipped their mind. The conclusion was why bother when you can Google it!

Of course you can't Google everything. It can't tell you where you parked your car, or where your phone is......Just a couple of questions that I have had trouble answering on occasions lately.

The question now is, are our brains getting the regular exercise required to function properly?

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

It's the next stage of evolution. We'll not be replaced by computers. We'll integrate with them. The next stages will be improving the interfaces so that we can contact the knowledge on the web just by thinking, instead of by typing and reading. Synthesis of human and computer. The Man-Machine. It's coming. Quickly.

Already, programmes like University Challenge seem anachronistic. A generation ago, when I was on it, having a memory for facts was a major advantage. Now it scarcely matters because the sum of human knowledge is a click away (with Wikipedia being the single greatest achievement of the human race for me).

Give it five years and you won't need to remember where you left your car or your phone. They'll be connected to the web too and will be instantly discoverable.

It's not something to be scared of. The potential is wonderful. And it is transforming what we need to do to educate people. There's no point rote learning lists of kings and queens, or how to differentiate y=3x + 7x^2. What matters now is not facts and methods but what you DO with them. Creative thinking. Inspiration. The sort of things that computers can't (yet) do. I'm watching how my 7&8 year old kids are being taught maths at school and it is wonderful. It's not about sitting in rows reciting "1 times 4 is 4. 2 times 4 is 8..." It's about breaking hard maths problems into simpler ones. Like being asked to solve 155 divided by 5 and instead of learning a rote, mechanical method, learning to see that it is the same as 100/5 + 50/5 + 5/5 = 20 + 10 + 1 =31. It's about teaching kids from an early age to take ownership of problems and to devise ways to see them, rather than to learn handle cranking methods.

Personally, I think it's a glorious time to be alive. The possibilities are truly awe-inspiring and I'm convinced that my kids will look on our generation's hidebound way of thinking and learning as quaintly old-fashioned.

[GazLaz]

Dropped that one in nicely BST!! Have you got a link to it???

[BillyStubbsTears]

Nowt to brag about Gaz. I went to Scumbag College.  The test to get on the team was to be able to count your toes with your eyes closed. The questions  on the programme were miles easier in them days too. Our team won its first round match but that team would struggle to get 50 points these days.

Haven't got a link to it. Which is a shame as I was THE coolest f***er ever to grace the programme.

[hoolahoop]

Nowt to brag about Gaz. I went to Scumbag College.  The test to get on the team was to be able to count your toes with your eyes closed. The questions  on the programme were miles easier in them days too. Our team won its first round match but that team would struggle to get 50 points these days.

Haven't got a link to it. Which is a shame as I was THE coolest f***er ever to grace the programme.

I can imagine .pmsl . Still unable to see why it's better to be able to break down that Division so slowly and painfully when our generation can we the correct answer in a split second  ?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hoola

It's not about the division per se. It's about the ability to break down a complex problem into a series of simpler, manageable problems. 40 years ago, I was taught that sort of division problem as a method. I didn't have to understand the fundamentals behind the method. I just had to learn the method. And the method was applicable only to that one type of problem. But if you teach kids to have confidence in using their brains to work out their own methods of attacking problems, that is FAR more powerful.

That is what humans can do and machines can't (at least, not easily). But I didn't pick up that sort of skill till I was well into my late 20s. And even then, I picked it up despite my education rather than because of it. The point is that if you have a Google/Wiki generation that don't need to spend years rote learning things, they can instead develop the problem-solving skills that mark us out as human.

Richard P Feynman was arguably the greatest scientific genius of the 20th Century. In his book "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", he wrote a section about how they passed boring evenings at Los Alamos when he was working on the atom bomb. He said that one of his mates would challenge them to work out problems like, "What is 99 squared?"

Feynman remembered the standard formula that gets taught in secondary school maths
(A-B)^2 = A^2 + B^2 -2AB

So, if A=100 and B=1, A-B=99

And so,
99^2
= 100^2 + 1^2 - 2*100*1
= 10000 + 1 - 200 = 9801

The fact that it's a maths problem that you can now do on a calculator in half a second is irrelevant. The point is that it is a human brain, taking a really hard problem and breaking it down into a set of really easy problems.

That is what we do and that is how we progress. 20,000 years ago, some humans were crapping themselves at not having enough food to eat. That was the big problem. It was insurmountable. Until some other humans broke that down into:
a) Let's gather some straight pieces of wood
b) Let's get some pieces of flint and chip them into sharp shapes
c) Let's get some bits of animal sinew and tie the sharp bits onto the long bits.
d) Let's organise some hunting parties.
e) Let's use these weapons that we've made to kill a big f**king Mammoth and eat the bas**rd.

That's why we dominate the planet. And it's that sort of thinking that will take us through whatever challenges the planet chucks at us.

[Glyn_Wigley]

If we didn't have Google, where would Mick get his debating 'skills' from..?

[IDM]

"University Challenge" = "Spot the virgin"

And yes, I do enjoy watching it!

[Rios]

The more worrying thing is that as younger generations become so completely reliant on Google they get into the mindset that it is Gospel, which leaves "the truth" at the mercy of a Company and other forces (Governments, etc).  The UK's government are already on a mass censorship drive and Google search is at the heart of that.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Rios
Which is why Wikipedia is so important.

[BobG]

And a good healthy sense of sceptical realism too. Being separate from the herd iis always a good thing too in my book.

BobG

[Dutch Uncle]

Hoola

It's not about the division per se. It's about the ability to break down a complex problem into a series of simpler, manageable problems. 40 years ago, I was taught that sort of division problem as a method. I didn't have to understand the fundamentals behind the method. I just had to learn the method. And the method was applicable only to that one type of problem. But if you teach kids to have confidence in using their brains to work out their own methods of attacking problems, that is FAR more powerful.

That is what humans can do and machines can't (at least, not easily). But I didn't pick up that sort of skill till I was well into my late 20s. And even then, I picked it up despite my education rather than because of it. The point is that if you have a Google/Wiki generation that don't need to spend years rote learning things, they can instead develop the problem-solving skills that mark us out as human.

Richard P Feynman was arguably the greatest scientific genius of the 20th Century. In his book "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", he wrote a section about how they passed boring evenings at Los Alamos when he was working on the atom bomb. He said that one of his mates would challenge them to work out problems like, "What is 99 squared?"

Feynman remembered the standard formula that gets taught in secondary school maths
(A-B)^2 = A^2 + B^2 -2AB

So, if A=100 and B=1, A-B=99

And so,
99^2
= 100^2 + 1^2 - 2*100*1
= 10000 + 1 - 200 = 9801

The fact that it's a maths problem that you can now do on a calculator in half a second is irrelevant. The point is that it is a human brain, taking a really hard problem and breaking it down into a set of really easy problems.

That is what we do and that is how we progress. 20,000 years ago, some humans were crapping themselves at not having enough food to eat. That was the big problem. It was insurmountable. Until some other humans broke that down into:
a) Let's gather some straight pieces of wood
b) Let's get some pieces of flint and chip them into sharp shapes
c) Let's get some bits of animal sinew and tie the sharp bits onto the long bits.
d) Let's organise some hunting parties.
e) Let's use these weapons that we've made to kill a big f***ing Mammoth and eat the b*****d.

That's why we dominate the planet. And it's that sort of thinking that will take us through whatever challenges the planet chucks at us.

As a (very) old school mathematician BST I love that post.

By the way have you ever listened to 'New Math' by Tom Lehrer?

[silent majority]

Just a note following on from BSTs prediction about internet connectivity.

My new car is permanently connected to the internet, that (apparently) is to help me find where it is if I can't remember where I parked it. It does work as well!It also logs all my journeys, tells me if I've locked it and whether any windows are open. In the event of a crash and the air-bags operate the emergency services are called.

It wasn't an optional extra, it comes with the car.

[BobG]

What a dreadful concept.

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

Dutch
Feynman was an utter genius at simplifying problems. I'm convinced that this is the essence of true genius. Not embracing complexity, but cutting through the smoke to see the simple picture inside. It's wonderful to see my kids being taught to have confidence in that sort of thinking.

I haven't listened to that song but I'll give it a go. On my side, I'd highly recommend "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" by Feynman.

[Al4475]

With the maths in school nowadays (as an experienced junior school teacher) it's all about teaching concepts and giving the children the opportunity to gain an understanding of the number system and how it works! The methodology and 'tricks' are now better taught if the understanding of the concept is there. The key to successful learning is their ability to apply knowledge and understanding to the kids! I often say to my class that they know as much about subjects as I do - the difference is I have more experience of the application and that's all! When a concept is embedded the 'tricks' make it easier to do! It's brill teaching this way in my opinion! We often say as well that we're helping them acquire and learn the skills for jobs later in their lives that probably don't exist yet!

[Rios]

Just a note following on from BSTs prediction about internet connectivity.

My new car is permanently connected to the internet, that (apparently) is to help me find where it is if I can't remember where I parked it. It does work as well!It also logs all my journeys, tells me if I've locked it and whether any windows are open. In the event of a crash and the air-bags operate the emergency services are called.

It wasn't an optional extra, it comes with the car.

So you're car is connected, your phone can be tracked via GPS and phone masts, your credit/debit cards are heavily monitored (for dubious spending patterns), CCTV cameras everwhere, laws forcing Google and others to delete historical news/data and smart TV's that can listen in.  Add in the Government's forthcoming "Snoopers Charter" and it sounds like 1984 was just a bit premature in its predictions...

[silent majority]

Just a note following on from BSTs prediction about internet connectivity.

My new car is permanently connected to the internet, that (apparently) is to help me find where it is if I can't remember where I parked it. It does work as well!It also logs all my journeys, tells me if I've locked it and whether any windows are open. In the event of a crash and the air-bags operate the emergency services are called.

It wasn't an optional extra, it comes with the car.

So you're car is connected, your phone can be tracked via GPS and phone masts, your credit/debit cards are heavily monitored (for dubious spending patterns), CCTV cameras everwhere, laws forcing Google and others to delete historical news/data and smart TV's that can listen in.  Add in the Government's forthcoming "Snoopers Charter" and it sounds like 1984 was just a bit premature in its predictions...

I must admit it did concern me at first, and probably still does. I was concerned about who had access to this information.

My younger brother runs a business that has several vehicles in its fleet all of which have trackers installed. The information available to him about what his employees are up to is astonishing.

[Dutch Uncle]

Dutch
Feynman was an utter genius at simplifying problems. I'm convinced that this is the essence of true genius. Not embracing complexity, but cutting through the smoke to see the simple picture inside. It's wonderful to see my kids being taught to have confidence in that sort of thinking.

I haven't listened to that song but I'll give it a go. On my side, I'd highly recommend "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" by Feynman.

Totally agree about Feynman BST, one of my heroes.

By the way, the Lehrer song (another of my heroes) is recommended for its humour and not the literal meaning of its words - I too strongly believe in the powers of teaching problem solving, and not rote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

I have my own three pronged theory about the reasons for decline in mental arithmetic starting in the 1970-'s:

1) The introduction of decimal currency in 1971 - prior to that we knew all sorts of patterns relating to 12's and 20's. Thank goodness non metric measures in length, weights and liquid measures carried on for a while longer....although at least we could recognise that the miles to kilometres ratio was close to the Golden section so Fibonacci would work (8 miles = approx 13 km, 13 miles = approx 21 km, 21 miles = approx 34 km etc)

2) The introduction of calculators as opposed to log tables, which also taught us important patterns. This has also led to the sad demise of the latter part of the old joke that when suffering with constipation a mathematician would work it out with a pencil, but an engineer would work it out with logs.

3) The football League's introduction of Goal Difference rather than Goal Average in 1976-77 - it meant the loss of opportunity for real time mental long division during a match to see if we would overtake someone in the table (The Aldershot 7-0 match in 1968-9 was the high point - 6-0 would not have been enough to go top that night).       

Now we just look at the instantaneously updated table on the iPhone.............

[BillyStubbsTears]

Dutch

I was at a conference in Singapore years ago. The Yanks were presenting everything in imperial units, and the poor Asia-Pacific buggers were frantically using their calculators to convert everything to metric to make sense of it.

Over lunch, we had a chat with an American and asked whether he thought he was being a bit disrespectful to the hosts and audience by not using metric units. He said exactly the same as you. That using different bases kept him intellectually sharp.

One of my mates got a glint in his eye. When he gave his presentation that afternoon, he'd presented the time axis of one graph in "micro-years". When he got to that slide, he pointed to the Yank we'd been dining with and said "You're intellectually sharp John. Work out what that means in 'seconds'."

[Dutch Uncle]

Look what happens when you are not mentally sharp though

http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Analytical_Chemistry/Quantifying_Nature/Case_Studies%3a_Metric%2f%2fEnglish_Conversion_Errors

 

[Nudga]

And every lad that I have employed doesn't know how to use an A to Z road map because of Google. 
"Look in the index for the street name"
"What's an index?"

[BillyStubbsTears]

Dutch
You've just reminded me of a conversion cock-up when I was resident engineer on the Kop stand at Bramall Lane.

The stand was built on the old ash terrace embankment, with new concrete steps poured over the old ones. The embankment was a strange triangular shape, so we filled in the empty corner by building a steel frame with elevated concrete beams spanning between them to square off the terrace. At the back of the stand, we built a big elevated concrete exit walkway, which was on the steel frame at one end, and ran into the bank at the other end. In all, the elevated bit of the walkway before it met the embankment was about 100m long.

Looks like this


At least that was the theory of what it was supposed to look like. When we set out the foundations for the columns for the walkway, we realised that where the walkway ended, it was still about 4m short of where the embankment was at a suitable level to meet it, up at the top right in that photo.

Cut a long story short, it turned out that the company had skimped on having a proper survey of the embankment done. They'd relied on an old survey drawing and scaled all the dimensions off that. That old survey drawing was at 1inch:8foot scale  - 1:96. The young lad who'd been scaling off it reckoned that was about equal to 1:100, so scaled everything off with a 1:100 scale ruler. So all the measurements that he calculated were 4% wrong. Which was why our walkway ended up 4m short of where it should have been.

We quietly ordered half a dozen new beams and columns and a new batch of concrete and no-one was any wiser.

[GazLaz]

And every lad that I have employed doesn't know how to use an A to Z road map because of Google. 
"Look in the index for the street name"
"What's an index?"

Those young Pilipino boys have never had much use for an A-Z before though Nudga.

[hoolahoop]

"University Challenge" = "Spot the virgin"

And yes, I do enjoy watching it!

The problem is I do too but you have less time than the contestants do to impress the Mrs.
However I still think my brain is working effectively but is due an M.O.T. lol

Incidentally Billy I have never read the book you mention but naturally used the same methodology naturally to solve complex business problems. I found it useless when attempting to break down issues in my private life . My ex wife had already beaten me to the punch on every issue there and took me to the cleaners (

[RobTheRover]

Lost your car or your phone?  There's an android app for that....

Car Finder - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mountainreacher.carfinder
Android Device Manager - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.adm

I used ADM a few weeks ago to find my son's phone.  He'd left it at the park after playing football, and some little scrote had it.  After ringing it constantly for an hour, I logged on to ADM and it told me to within 12 meters where it was; a house in Sprotbrough.  ADM has an option to make the phone ring constantly for 5 minutes so I clicked that too then jumped in the car.  Halfway to the address his phone rings me and a woman tells me her son has just come down from his bedroom and given her this phone he's "found" that "wont stop ringing".  I told her I was already on the way to her house.  She shit herself.  Couldnt hand the phone over fast enough when I got there.