Is google making us dumb?

In Nancy Baym's book Personal Connections in the Digital Age she introduces us to the idea of social shaping of technology. She explains this perspective by describing the way in which it is not always technology that shapes us, but we also play a roll in the way that we shape technology. I chose this perspective because I think it is a very unique way to look at social media. We always say that google has made us dumb, but that is not googles fault. Instead it could be our fault for becoming so heavily attached and reliable on the site, but no one is forcing us to google things, it is a choice that we make. To make this clearer, we can look at the Prom Queen of Instagram article in the NY Times. Before Instagram, people liked things, but Instagram made "likes" a thing of competition or a feeling of self worth. Lilli Hymowitz uses Instagram to share with the world her glamorized lifestyle, but Instagram came to be this way because of the way the users, us, have made it to be. It is cool to get a lot of likes on a picture you post, and that has become the goal. Instagram is no longer just a place to share a picture, it has become a popularity contest, to see who can gain the most likes. Although not all people use Instagram as a means of self worth after getting 100 likes on a selfie, this is what we have made of the application and of the "like" tool that comes along with it.