The Internet has become one of our most useful resources when it comes to finding answer to all sorts of questions. Now children find the information they are looking for by typing it into Google’s search box on their phone or computer. This process is much more convenient than getting to the next library or searching through large encyclopedias in order to find public information on a topic. Yet, this convenience is compromised by the danger of finding inappropriate information.

The Children-friendly Search Engine in Action

So far search engines have not been the best friends of parents when trying to keep children safe online. But Kiddle, the search engine powered by Google safe search, was invented to fix this issue. The designers of Kiddle decided to go for an interface that looks an awful lot like the one Google uses, making children less suspicious of using a different search engine than their parents or older brothers and sisters. The only major difference is that the designers exchanged the white webpage found on Google’s homepage with a much more fun looking space themed background and a robot in front of the search box. So how does the search engine work?

Copyright: Africa Studio

Working the same way other search engines do, children can write a query into the search box and Kiddle will pull up a list of links including news, images and videos matching the search request. According to research carried out by Tech Times, Kiddle classifies search results into three categories: the first results are handpicked by Kiddle’s editors, results further down the page are written in easy language and focus their attention on children as their main audience, and the rest of the links are pages that are chosen by Google safe search. As if by magic, inappropriate search results will not appear at all.

In more detail, results hand-picked by the editors ensure that they are children-friendly. In most of the searches, the first three articles will be written for children. The majority of the other results will be picked by Goggle safe search. These pages are tailored for adult audiences which may make it more difficult for children to understand the content but Kiddle guarantees that these website do not include any inappropriate topics.

Children’s Privacy, Inappropriate Searches and Celebrities

Regarding data protection, unlike Google, Kiddle promises that logs are cleared very day and that the search engine does not save or collect any personal information. When it comes to children searching for inappropriate content themselves, Kiddle will flag this search by showing an angry looking robot asking to try again. This should be a very welcome relief for parents who know that their children love to play with search engines and who try to make inappropriate search requests because they are interested to see what information they can find.   There is also a form where parents can submit further key words that should be blocked in case there are words that have not yet been blocked.

Copyright: Tatyana Vyc

Kiddle’s safe search does not only protect children when they try to find suitable information for school projects, it also works for searches on celebrities. Inappropriate behaviours, ambitious music videos or images unsuitable for children are filtered. For instance, if a child were to search the former Disney actor Selena Gomez, the newest music video would be blocked as well as her starring in the 16+ rated movie called ‘spring breakers’ and her controversial relationship to former boyfriend Justin Bieber.

The Limits of Protection

However, according to an article published by the BBC, media has been criticising Kiddle recently due to the fact that there were and still are search anomalies such as the blocking of the celebrity Pamela Anderson but not the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. Words that were also blocked by the search engine until recently included the adjectives gay and lesbian. This decision triggered protests by campaign groups who argued that Kiddle should allow children to read about these terms from a children-friendly perspective rather than leaving them uneducated and risking that children turn to alternative search engines finding inappropriate information instead.

Copyright: Ilike

In the digital age, there are many dangers online that require parents’ supervision no matter how much parents trust their children. Parents should keep in mind that Kiddle cannot shield children 100% from inappropriate content. In the end, parents need to pay attention to the search history of the phones and tablets of their youngsters. Since control mechanisms only have a limited scope, it may be a good idea to have age-appropriate conversations with children on a regular basis in order to teach them how important it is to use the Internet responsibly.

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There is no doubt that the access to information has changed tremendously over the past decade. While it was impossible to come up with answers to questions without consulting a book or scribbling down own thoughts in the past, search engines such as Google are the preferred go-to places in the era of smartphones. Like no other generation, today’s teenagers and students appreciate the convenience of knowledge at their fingertips asking Google to provide information on any kind of question. But does Google actually support the learning process or does the overload of information distract the brain in the long run?

Looking for Answers

Despite the dominance of technology on our everyday life, there is a lack of academic literature studying how the use of search engines affects our memory and the way we learn new concepts.

Some researchers use examples from the past to argue that the easy access to information supports our brain and gives us the chance to concentrate on other skills such as creativity. Steve Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor, once argued that the Internet and technological advancement are the only solutions to keep human beings smart. His article in the New York Times focused on the positive effects of newspapers and television which were also highly criticised for increasing human stupidity during the time of their emergence.

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Search Engines- Confidence Boosters or Distractors?

It may even be possible that the usage of search engines boosts students’ confidence in their understanding of new concepts. At Yale University, Matthew Fisher divided participants of his study into two groups. He asked the first group of students to give their answers to a set of questions, before using Google to confirm the answers. The second group of students did not have access to the Internet and had to answer the questions after thinking about them for a moment. At some trials, Fisher manipulated the search engine’s function resulting in a limitation of possible answers. Surprisingly, students who had access to the search engine had an increased level of confidence on the topic in comparison to those students who had to answer the questions directly.

However, some observational studies doubt that the instant availability of information though search engines has a positive effect on students’ learning process. In 2011, the Science Magazine published a research study that had focused on college students and their ability to remember information. The results showed that students who knew that they would be able to access the information easily online in the future, could recall the process and place where to find it more easily. Yet in return, these students also remembered less of the information itself.

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This behaviour is also very familiar within other contexts. Many Facebook user do not remember their friend’s birthday because they know it is always accessible on the Facebook website. Researchers conclude that we learn to rely on Google rather than on our own memory when it comes to storing long-term knowledge. Other researchers assume that the fact to be able to access the information wherever we like has a negative impact on our motivation to memorize the information.

The Problem of Information Overload

Google statistics show that the number of search requests increased enormously over the past twenty years. While Google’s search engine answered roughly 1000 queries a day in 1998, the company receives more than 3.5 billion search requests per year by now.

This exceptional increase leads to another potential issue: there is way too much information out there. This means that students have to deal with an overload of information when they try to find answers to their questions online. The combination of this information overload and long-term memory loss increase the risk that Google and Co. have a negative impact on the brain.  Research commissioned by the British Library found that the access to too much information has a major effect on students’ evaluations of content. The study showed that even though all participants reviewed online data in a short amount of time, most of them lacked the skill to evaluate the information for accuracy.

Copyright: Maria Uspenskaya

Instead of searching the answer for every possible question online without questioning the content, students need to re-develop the skill of critical thinking. As a result, some teachers in the US came up with the idea to cultivate critical-thinking in the minds of their students by integrating search engines more cleverly in class. By allowing students to use Google to answer questions that cannot be answered easily in a few words, they try to help students to develop their own set of skills. This activity could also make students more aware of all the consequences Google has on their brains.

What do you think about the role of search engines in the learning process? How often do you use them? Could you manage without them? Share your thoughts in the comments bellow.

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