// essays //
Spring 2016
Another Lost Generation:
Finding Ourselves in the Age of Google Maps
Marissa Young
I used to love getting lost. There was something exciting about being in an unfamiliar place, winding through the streets for as long as it took to find a way out. It was a challenging puzzle and an unavoidable part of life. Today when I get lost, I just open Google Maps and follow the quickest route to my destination. Choosing not to use this shortcut would be illogical, a simple waste of time. For all intents and purposes, getting lost is dead.
Google Maps embodies the modus operandi of our generation—to know and know now. With a wealth of information at our fingertips, we are naturally far more informed than ever before. However, it seems that the state of being ideologically lost is just as extinct as its literal counterpart. Just walk around our college campus and ask students about their views on any issue under the sun and you will probably find, as I have, that people tend to know exactly where they stand. Everyone claims to have a strong opinion about everything—from climate change to the presidential elections and police brutality. I cannot remember the last time I heard someone say, “I don’t think I have enough information to have an opinion on that.” And why should they? If anyone ever has a doubt about a political issue or controversy, Google is there to direct them straight to the information they want to know. And they need to know. What excuse is there, really, to claim ignorance on the Syrian refugee crisis or income inequality in America with a smartphone in hand? In the year 2016, becoming an “expert” is simple. When a wealth of information is available at the click of a button or a command to Siri, apathy is indefensible.
This is a lot of pressure for an unrealistic goal—no one can be an expert in everything. But in this case, breadth of knowledge comes at the expense of depth. This process is described by social scientists as low-information rationality, whereby humans are “cognitive misers” that constantly seek shortcuts in their quest for knowledge. The term was coined in 1991 by political scientist Samuel Popkins, who used it to describe the process by which voters craft narratives about candidates and their presidential promise based on limited information.
Though Popkins developed this model years before the Internet became an ubiquitous reality, the theory seems to be even more applicable in today’s technological age. With so much information so readily available, and an unspoken social pressure to master it all, our generation is tasked with the challenge of sorting through it in the most efficient manner possible. Technology serves as a time-saver by giving us instantaneous answers and making once tedious tasks as simple as a few clicks. But in contradiction to the basic market principle of supply and demand, the commodity of time has risen in demand as it has risen in supply. The reason for this is the same as the one in the Google Maps analogy—if it takes us less time to get places, then we are simply expected to cover more ground every day.
In an increasingly fast moving world, speed is has become the highest priority. When a classmate asks me what my opinion is on fossil fuel divestment or raising the minimum wage, my mission is to become an “expert.” Immediately. All I have to do is Google the issue, read the first ten search results, maybe a few op-eds, but mostly just Wikipedia, and that is all that is needed in order to have a seemingly informed opinion. With their hundreds of pages of information, only a small portion of which will actually be the answer, books have become as obsolete as driving around an unfamiliar neighborhood without a GPS. But while bypassing wrong turns has no effect on the nature of the destination, skipping the research process can severely undermine the quality of one’s ultimate stance. Somehow, in our unprecedented access to information, we falsely believe that we require much less.
The theory of low-information rationality also tells us that we look for shortcuts within the information we receive. How can you determine from the flood of articles and Facebook posts what an issue is all about? More importantly, how can you know whether it merits your support? This is where buzzwords enter the scene. These trendy little words and phrases are even more influential than the facts themselves. They serve as tools of association, appearing in multiple contexts that are presumably aligned. For example, if anti-fracking activists describe their cause as a human rights issue, one may glean a general idea of the motivation and general character of its goal. Supporting it is a no-brainer. Alternatively, using the buzzword "Apartheid" when talking about Israel connotes that the fight against Israel is a fight against a racist regime—and who can argue against that? Buzzwords like these often persist in one’s mind long after reading that initial article, and are quite effective at broadening the base of activist organizations. This buzzword-activism may be useful for quantitative growth but threatens the qualitative knowledge of a group’s base, and yield the dilution of social responsibility. It also increases the likelihood of misrepresentation, for without all of the information, it is impossible to know if those buzzwords are being aptly applied.
The problem with Google Maps and other navigation devices is that through giving us the precise route, it never grants us the opportunity to learn the way ourselves. It no longer matters how we get to where we’re going, just that we get there as soon as possible. Similarly, our unprecedented access to information and our need for immediacy means that we have no need to waste time understanding all of the nuances involved in forming our own opinions when we can simply acquire a pre-packaged opinion that has already been widely adopted by others. Op-eds are great sources of opinion because in approximately 800 words, they sum up the most compelling arguments for or against the issue in question. But at best, op-eds are written by those who have thoroughly researched all of perspectives to arrive at the definitive opinion expressed in the article. At worst, they are written by those who have not completed the research process but express their passionate viewpoint nonetheless. Either way, they are not supposed to present all sides of an issue. Often, op-eds are useful, enjoyable, and valuable contributions to political conversations. However, we must be wary of relying on the opinions of others to reach our own.
I wish that I could get lost again. I yearn for a reason to wander around uncharted territory in the hopes of stumbling upon something new and unexpected. I want to open up a map—a real map—and study the route until I know it by heart. To spend hours researching an issue because there is simply no other way of figuring out what to believe. To sometimes be able to claim that I have no opinion at all.
But the modern age does not afford us such luxuries. Instead, we can have any number of passionate beliefs, but we may never know enough to strongly articulate why we believe them. We repost and retweet the opinions of others on topics we will never have a reason to explore ourselves. In never being physically lost, we are, ironically, becoming a lost generation. But in this case, Google Maps cannot give us the direction we need.
Google Maps embodies the modus operandi of our generation—to know and know now. With a wealth of information at our fingertips, we are naturally far more informed than ever before. However, it seems that the state of being ideologically lost is just as extinct as its literal counterpart. Just walk around our college campus and ask students about their views on any issue under the sun and you will probably find, as I have, that people tend to know exactly where they stand. Everyone claims to have a strong opinion about everything—from climate change to the presidential elections and police brutality. I cannot remember the last time I heard someone say, “I don’t think I have enough information to have an opinion on that.” And why should they? If anyone ever has a doubt about a political issue or controversy, Google is there to direct them straight to the information they want to know. And they need to know. What excuse is there, really, to claim ignorance on the Syrian refugee crisis or income inequality in America with a smartphone in hand? In the year 2016, becoming an “expert” is simple. When a wealth of information is available at the click of a button or a command to Siri, apathy is indefensible.
This is a lot of pressure for an unrealistic goal—no one can be an expert in everything. But in this case, breadth of knowledge comes at the expense of depth. This process is described by social scientists as low-information rationality, whereby humans are “cognitive misers” that constantly seek shortcuts in their quest for knowledge. The term was coined in 1991 by political scientist Samuel Popkins, who used it to describe the process by which voters craft narratives about candidates and their presidential promise based on limited information.
Though Popkins developed this model years before the Internet became an ubiquitous reality, the theory seems to be even more applicable in today’s technological age. With so much information so readily available, and an unspoken social pressure to master it all, our generation is tasked with the challenge of sorting through it in the most efficient manner possible. Technology serves as a time-saver by giving us instantaneous answers and making once tedious tasks as simple as a few clicks. But in contradiction to the basic market principle of supply and demand, the commodity of time has risen in demand as it has risen in supply. The reason for this is the same as the one in the Google Maps analogy—if it takes us less time to get places, then we are simply expected to cover more ground every day.
In an increasingly fast moving world, speed is has become the highest priority. When a classmate asks me what my opinion is on fossil fuel divestment or raising the minimum wage, my mission is to become an “expert.” Immediately. All I have to do is Google the issue, read the first ten search results, maybe a few op-eds, but mostly just Wikipedia, and that is all that is needed in order to have a seemingly informed opinion. With their hundreds of pages of information, only a small portion of which will actually be the answer, books have become as obsolete as driving around an unfamiliar neighborhood without a GPS. But while bypassing wrong turns has no effect on the nature of the destination, skipping the research process can severely undermine the quality of one’s ultimate stance. Somehow, in our unprecedented access to information, we falsely believe that we require much less.
The theory of low-information rationality also tells us that we look for shortcuts within the information we receive. How can you determine from the flood of articles and Facebook posts what an issue is all about? More importantly, how can you know whether it merits your support? This is where buzzwords enter the scene. These trendy little words and phrases are even more influential than the facts themselves. They serve as tools of association, appearing in multiple contexts that are presumably aligned. For example, if anti-fracking activists describe their cause as a human rights issue, one may glean a general idea of the motivation and general character of its goal. Supporting it is a no-brainer. Alternatively, using the buzzword "Apartheid" when talking about Israel connotes that the fight against Israel is a fight against a racist regime—and who can argue against that? Buzzwords like these often persist in one’s mind long after reading that initial article, and are quite effective at broadening the base of activist organizations. This buzzword-activism may be useful for quantitative growth but threatens the qualitative knowledge of a group’s base, and yield the dilution of social responsibility. It also increases the likelihood of misrepresentation, for without all of the information, it is impossible to know if those buzzwords are being aptly applied.
The problem with Google Maps and other navigation devices is that through giving us the precise route, it never grants us the opportunity to learn the way ourselves. It no longer matters how we get to where we’re going, just that we get there as soon as possible. Similarly, our unprecedented access to information and our need for immediacy means that we have no need to waste time understanding all of the nuances involved in forming our own opinions when we can simply acquire a pre-packaged opinion that has already been widely adopted by others. Op-eds are great sources of opinion because in approximately 800 words, they sum up the most compelling arguments for or against the issue in question. But at best, op-eds are written by those who have thoroughly researched all of perspectives to arrive at the definitive opinion expressed in the article. At worst, they are written by those who have not completed the research process but express their passionate viewpoint nonetheless. Either way, they are not supposed to present all sides of an issue. Often, op-eds are useful, enjoyable, and valuable contributions to political conversations. However, we must be wary of relying on the opinions of others to reach our own.
I wish that I could get lost again. I yearn for a reason to wander around uncharted territory in the hopes of stumbling upon something new and unexpected. I want to open up a map—a real map—and study the route until I know it by heart. To spend hours researching an issue because there is simply no other way of figuring out what to believe. To sometimes be able to claim that I have no opinion at all.
But the modern age does not afford us such luxuries. Instead, we can have any number of passionate beliefs, but we may never know enough to strongly articulate why we believe them. We repost and retweet the opinions of others on topics we will never have a reason to explore ourselves. In never being physically lost, we are, ironically, becoming a lost generation. But in this case, Google Maps cannot give us the direction we need.
\\ MARISSA YOUNG is a senior in Columbia College. She can be reached at [email protected]. Photo "steering wheel" is by Flickr user BrownZelip.