Another academic has taken a public swipe at the dumbing down effect of the Web. She takes particular aim at Google, charging the search engine with stifling debate and generally making students lazy – something she termed the “University of Google.”

Tara Brabazon, a professor at the University of Brighton, was quoted as saying:

Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments.

“Google is filling, but it does not necessarily offer nutritional content.”

She goes on to say that Google “flattens expertise” by making all information seem equally relevant, deep and accurate. The information on Google, she said and as we all know by now, is ranked according to algorithms that don’t necessarily discern relevance the way academics would like. Academic journal articles, in other words, don’t come first. How about scholar.google.com? Google books?
Her critique also includes the requisite dose of “these students today…”, which I find usually accompanies this sort of charge.

You can guess the rest. She has banned students in her class from using Wikipedia and Google as research tools in their first year of studies.

The most absurd thing about this is that she is a professor in a Media Studies department. Rather than banning them from using a resource that they will surely use anyway, wouldn’t it be more productive to spend a couple of class hours discussing with them the problems with these resources and their merits.

She also was quoted as saying:

“Students live in an age of information, but what they lack is correct information. They turn to Wikipedia unquestioningly for information. Why wouldn’t they – it’s there.”

Her critique is tired for sure. I’m not sure why this is still news. Oh wait, she’s flogging a book. Got it. Never mind, rant on.

I was pleased to see that Magnus Linklater, whose resume would not portend a Wikipedia fan, takes a well-reasoned swipe back.