The Children and Google

in the 20th century, there came the radio, movies, and tv. then we heard about google making students lazy in 1998, wikipedia spreading misinformation in 2001, and quickly all of this belonged inside pockets nationwide. now we’re talking about exploitation and profit. is this another scare or something else?

In my experience, the internet solves the problems that the internet creates. I grew up side-by-side with the MSN age. Picture my neuro-plasticky mind: just as ready to prioritize what I learned in chat boxes as the classroom. To define: at about 9 years old, writing a paper in the computer lab on something like hammerhead sharks or Antarctica, I used “wuz” in a sentence. And then stopped, and opened up Google to type in “how to spell” … “wuz?” Reader, I’d genuinely forgotten how to spell “was.” So far in this post, I have intentionally avoided using was outside of that last sentence, and believe me, it is a ridiculously challenging thing to do. Even though wuz is literally no more convenient, and honestly not all that cool, it had replaced that imperative little word. So I assure you, I understand what surely intelligent, or at least well-meaning people offer a lecture called Google is White Bread for the Mind.

Yet, I feel conflicted about banning platforms in the G Suite when the online sphere is present in students’ everyday lives, even though I identify with a friend’s half-joke about wishing the next phase of technology would be for AI to take over enough jobs that we could focus on working the land. When our guest speaker Jesse Miller came to address the class, I found myself piqued slideshow points like bringing up good digital citizens or “supporting empowerment of digital culture” when the alternative seems to be making mistakes that can be permanent and damaging. As I reflect on my own biases going into teaching, I’m snagged by my own temptations for convenience: I remember things best by writing them down but type faster than I pen; the act of checking off a to-do point soothes my brain but I prefer the flexibility to reassign tasks while keeping a mess-free presentation. I watched this tutorial of Google Classroom and can see myself using the platform, without a doubt.

and of course, the catch: the controversy no longer rests in whether a google search for “wuz” is proof positive of a melting brain, but what a multi-national, multi-trillion-dollar-net-worth company is doing with the information stored within – enter the “ghost of technology scare yet to come.”

Personally, I am highly skeptical of the fervor that is demonstrated by parents acting out of concern for their children. Between reading the provided articles on Google Classroom, looking up instances where Google and Wikipedia were banned only for their use to become highly regular again, and even checking up on Google’s market value, I was asked to use a login 2 times, asked to either disable my pop-up blocker or generally allow ads on the page 3 times, and was asked if I would agree to all cookies on nearly every single article I opened, which was 12 total. All this to say that our computers gathering our data is incredibly baked in, and I wonder if parents who are bristling up against their children’s first and last names being sent into a foreign database also take pictures of their kids that get automatically stored in iCloud before they upload them onto their public Instagram profiles.

This isn’t to say that I disagree with the sentiment Dr. Michael has mentioned, to at least paraphrase: “if the service is free, consider if you are the product,” nor do I think it’s a non-issue to have less agency over our information as things become increasingly automated. What I’m contending with is that students, parents, and teachers alike have lamented the lost years of education due to the pandemic, and the large-scale unpreparedness teachers were confronting when that happened. If we expect the internet to continue, why wouldn’t we take the stance that the next generation should be equipped with digital literacy? If the next generation need digital literacy, why would we ban a free tool to bring teachers along in their own professional development? Are petitions to go back to a more traditional culture always rationalized by it being “for the sake of the children”?

Looking at the above quote with this lens, there are two things going on: the school introduced the program without due diligence, and the father was reactive. “Google’s education products… are deeply embedded in Denmark’s education system,” but to read between the lines is that the father learned that his son didn’t share his values, his pride for being analog. I can understand the shock and disappointment – I’m also inclined to cheer on the parents who are concerned we are raising a bunch of consumers (the article is referring to consumption of Google Suite products, mind you) while reportedly about half of children aged 7-11 and 90% of teens have a cellphone.

At the risk of showing too virtuous, I am caught up in the conflict myself. I don’t want to, but I do feel the need to carry my phone around all the time. I feel wary of being a product for corporations, but I click “agree” on pop-ups to get back to my scrolling. And honestly, I feel pretty certain I will incorporate Google Classroom into my teaching despite having sympathy for these parents. When we have seen the collective mourning for “lost years” due to unprepared remote learning in lockdown era, I would rather hold systems other than the G Suite responsible.