Dear Google: I can’t tell if you’re a helping hand or evil… SOS 

I find Google to be a little annoying, super dependable and kind of scary. I also find Google to be the main reason I am such a terrible speller (now that I pointed it out…). I blame Google for a lot of things and according to the reading on the Gospel of Google, so does the rest of the world. Sometimes I feel like I take Google for granted. Without Google this world would fall apart…which is scary. However, I think Google does some wonderful things. “Google puts previously unimaginable resources at our fingertips- huge libraries, archives, warehouses of government records, troves of goods, the comings and goings of whole swaths of humanity” (2). I believe without Google everyone would be lost. Literally though, I mean actually lost. Google Maps is basically life.

However, I think I am as blind as the rest of the world. Blind to the idea that google can quite possibly be more “evil” than “it” tells us. Or maybe as people we are all unsure if Google is actually evil or good? Is it good because everything is at the tips of our fingers in a matter of seconds with no wait at all? Or has Google hindered our ability to ever actually think for ourselves? That’s the question I have been ignoring. I think those are the questions society has been ignoring.

“Because of our faith in Google and its claims of omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence, we tend to grant Google’s search results inordinate and undeserved power” (3). As humans we have come to believe in Google. We believe Google can do no wrong and that part really scares me. It scares me that I will believe in what Google tells me. I can count numerous times that I have told someone to “Google it” to make sure it is true. Google has given me a sense of ease in which I allow Google all power. “As with any system of belief, ideologies underlying the rise of Google have helped shape the worldview of those who created it as well as those who use and believe in it. — seeking wisdom and guidance in navigating the world in the early years of the twenty-first century Google looks like the model for everything and the solution to every problem” (6).

Google is the model and solution of everything and that is why I turn an eye to it. I think I am naive to the power of Google. I am distracted by all of Google’s power to realize the pocket book I was looking at twenty minutes ago is now advertised on the side of my Facebook. I ignore the field hockey related advertisements popping up on my screen because I do not want to believe that my information is so vulnerable.  I also want to trust in Google that one day it will be a good thing that so much information was stored and taken from individuals. But once again, I think that is just me being naive to the power of Google.