I Click, Therefore I Am

steven bell writes “In his essay, “From Thinkers to Clickers…”, M.O. Thirunarayanan presents some ideas that will resonate with librarians. He discusses how Web searching, with its endless clicking, has changed our behavior. He compares it to book reading, which actually stimulates thinking. The Web however is a tool less conducive to thinking. This essay meshes nicely with librarians’ observed changes in student research behavior and declining critical thinking before and during the research process. He goes so far as to suggest that because clicking across the Web is about maintaining control, any thinking that occurs along the way introduces uncertainty and ambiguity – which may explain why students will keep clicking rather than slowing down to think about the process. Read more at:
ACM.org