I suppose I would have to say "yes, I am addicted to Google," but perhaps not as addicted as I could be.
Admittedly, Google is my go-to whenever I need to look something up on the Internet (aside from those assignments in which we're required to use academic search bases...although sometimes I try Google after using those too - shhh!!! Don't tell anyone!)
The majority of the webpages I visit, I found/find on Google. Once I find a site that I know I'm going to frequently visit, I add it to my bookmarks (which I find far more efficient than heading to Google first every time). But I usually discover webpages through Google. Or if I know of a website but can't think of its exact URL, then I type the site name into Google and access it from there.
I'm also a big YouTube watcher; there's just such a variety of content, some of which is made by very creative individuals and can allow viewers to enjoy other people's takes on their favorite movies, TV shows, and songs. I generally don't watch entire movies or listen to full songs on YouTube however, partially because I still believe in supporting the artists of these works and partially because the quality on YouTube is almost always inferior to the originals.
Despite these ways I use Google on a daily basis, I do agree with many of Siva Vaidhyanathan's concerns about this monolith of a search engine. I was already aware that what we do online isn't exactly private, but I wasn't aware of the myriad of ways Google tracks our activity. This is because I didn't realize how many services Google is connected with: YouTube, Blogger, Chrome, etc. I was naively thinking of Google solely in terms of its search engine empire. But I suppose that Google's been gathering data on me from my activity on YouTube all this time, and now from Blogger as well.
And it's not so much what Google itself could possibly do with our information, but how Google could potentially distribute that information to companies - perhaps even to governments - across the world.
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