Google

Google, and all that it navigates us to, is not making us stupid. President Bush uses Google. As he famously said in a 2006 interview, "…one of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps.'' Enough said.

With the evolution of the Internet, reading has become a multi-media experience. The book or newspaper has morphed into a more complete information package of prose, imagery, sound and sources, with the potential to be re-written as necessary. What was once limited by the physical page is now nearly infinite, punctuated with multiple points of departure leading you to still more relevant information. What years ago might have taken hours or days of research can be accomplished in minutes.

When I was an undergraduate, there was no Google. There was no Wikipedia. As a matter of fact, there was no internet, no personal computers, no cell phones. Reading was by default ‘old school’ and research was conducted in the library. The Information Age, like no other in our history, has provided us with unlimited access to information and new mediums. The individual challenge is for each of us to have the discipline to not be distracted by every link and pop-up we encounter, while working as fast as we can to absorb as much as we can from a medium designed for maximum efficiency.

There's an ever-present Taylor's stopwatch in all of us.