Google generation

The Google generation is a phrase that has entered popular usage as a shorthand way of referring to a generation whose first port of call for knowledge is the internet and a search engine, Google being the most popular one. This is in distinction to previous generations that grew up and were educated before the widespread availability of the internet, and whose source of knowledge was through books and conventional libraries. Other terms in use for the same age group include "Generation Xbox",1 the "iPod" generation and the "instant-messaging generation".2 The distinct characteristics, in terms of habits and expectations, of such people are exerting a strong effect on the fields of academia, commerce, entertainment and libraries.

Effect on institutions

Historic establishments have recognised the need to meet this new reality, and the British Library in London states:

As the Google generation turns to the Library for help, we’re meeting their expectations with increasingly integrated services and a programme of continuous service upgrades.3

The need for academic institutions to keep pace with the demands of this generation is not merely a demonstration of expertise but a necessity for survival.4

Issues

The tensions that can be created by the new outlook of this generation are described:

Students are coming to law school increasingly dependent on computers to serve their research needs. And they expect that computerized legal research will be both more efficient and more effective than book-based research. These expectations place students in conflict with traditionalists who point to the inherent limitations of computer-assisted legal research and the dangers in relying on legal research conducted entirely in electronic databases. These traditionalists favor a "books first," if not a "books only," approach. This paper explores the cultural conflict between the traditionalists and the "Google generation"...5

Complaints have been made that the reliance on Google by students has severely compromised their ability for conventional print research, particularly aspects of it that are not significant features of web-based research, such as information hierarchy and even the difference between "index" and "contents".6

It has been posited that "As members of the Google generation, today's children have facts at their fingertips" and there is consequently a surfeit of data at the expense of both creative thinking and play.7

Many educational institutions have realized that many students tend to copy their assignment since it is easy for them to search for answers to similar questions online. In fact, some students believe that it is acceptable to copy, something that was not considered acceptable by the majority of people growing up only a decade earlier. 8

See also

• Internet generation