This. My mother used to teach classes in primary school how to use the computer and the internet, but appears to have forgotten most of this when browser user interfaces started prioritizing Google search. Now it's hard to get her to navigate to a URL and (even using Google) she struggles to find the information she needs because she's not used to accurate queries anymore.
I get the value proposition of Google Search, just like I get the value proposition of Velcro shoes and microwave dinners. The problem is not with the face value of these technologies, but with their assumptions and implications. In spite of Silicon Valley rhetoric, these technologies do not empower and liberate their users but make them dependent on them. The more you outsource your thinking to algorithms, the more vulnerable you are to being controlled by them.
I get the value proposition of Google Search, just like I get the value proposition of Velcro shoes and microwave dinners. The problem is not with the face value of these technologies, but with their assumptions and implications. In spite of Silicon Valley rhetoric, these technologies do not empower and liberate their users but make them dependent on them. The more you outsource your thinking to algorithms, the more vulnerable you are to being controlled by them.