Arunima Singh wrote:

Shampa Sadhya wrote:

I would say Google has made our lives very hassle free. Gaining knowledge has indeed become quite convenient but it's our attitude which has made us to take the advantage of the situation. Some students and some freelance writers are actually abusing the usage of Google which is a very sorry plight.   

But it has created a lots of issues also. Many a times Google gives us half cooked knowledge. All that we get is not what we were looking for or wanted. Many a times it is misleading as all the contributions online might not be from a reliable source.

Here I take an example of a some medical symptoms, you google it and you are flooded with information...some which guide you and most of them misguide you and confuse you. You follow them to cure your symptoms and you are in a soup and have to rush to medical emergency. Many information instill unnecessary fear in you. So in such cases , it is half knowledge from Google which turns to be a curse.

For example, one of my relative is a kidney patient and is on low potassium diet. Her daughter googled  about foods for healthy kidney and found lotus seeds, drumsticks etc. beneficial for kidney. She gave them to her mother confidently relying on her knowledge from Google. Her mother's ceratinine level rose up and her condition worsened. When she visited the doctor, she found out that these foods help to have healthy kidney in a regular human but not if the person is kidney patient and is on low sodium and potassium diet. 

so here half knowledge would have killed the person

Exactly, Arunima. I endorse your views. I too feel that one should use Google to gain knowledge but not depend on it totally. Something similar to what you described happened in my family.

One of my elder sister had felt a lump in her left breast last week. She made an appointment with a doctor the next day but at night, she googled her symptoms and came across many articles which mentioned that lumps in breast are carcinogenic. She felt more and more nervous as she continued reading articles. She couldn't sleep the whole night and was totally stressed out by the time she met the doctor. There the doctor informed her that it was not a carcinogenic lump.

Like her, many people destroy their life with self diagnosis after googling symptoms. 

I have a point to make here. As a educator I always feel that our education system somewhere hinders from acquiring knowledge. It has become information feeding. We feed and infact overfeed young brains with too much of information infact many of them are not even age appropriate. Brains are overloaded and imagination, exploration and creativity are thrown out. One needs all this and the enjoyment during journey and process to gain knowledge.