Plato (and JISC, UCL, and the BL) on the Myth of the Google Generation

Last September JISC, UCL, and the British Library released a report on the information seeking behaviours of the “Google Generation.” I think this is a significant report, and I have a number of reactions to it, so I think I will spread my response(s) over a few postings…I was also pleased to see that they have recently released all of their work packages as well. You can find the whole report here.

This report does a few great things.

1. It debunks a lot of the myths about the “Google Generation” being good at finding information. It turns out they just aren’t. (This should not come as a great surprise to reference librarians, and if it does, we have a problem.)

the information literacy of young people, has not improved with the widening access to technology: in fact, their apparent facility with computers disguises some worrying points.

2. The authors point out how so much writing today overestimates the impact of ICTs on young people and they have some evidence to back that up. Unfortunately, I think they fall into a bit of their own trap by constantly over-emphasizing the ‘unprecedented’ nature of the digital shift. This is not the first time that people have feared that a new technology would dumb down society:

Socrates, in conversation with Phaedrus said about that new technology, writing:

for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
:: Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Benjamin Jowett ::

When the report talks about the perils of “power browsing,” I think they start to drift off their mark, though. I don’t think “power browsing“ is inherently a bad thing, just dangerous if it is the only method of selecting information. I would have liked to see the report dig a little bit deeper into the importance of teaching real research skills (of which evaluation is one component). It is not about teaching students evaluation skills so they can be good researchers, it is about teaching a whole suite of research skills because this is how we turn information into knowledge.

The report also has some harsh, but I think fair, things to say about the current state of libraries and librarianship (more on that to come…). Overall, its definitely worth a read. And they provide an executive summary :)