The Google Generation: Are ICT Innovations Changing Information‐seeking Behaviour?

Citation

de Kock, M. (2010), "The Google Generation: Are ICT Innovations Changing Information‐seeking Behaviour?", Online Information Review, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 663-664. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521011073089

In this book the Google Generation is defined by being born at a time when not only ICTs were prevalent, which was true to some degree for the pre‐Google era, but also when a diverse range of applications had entered common usage. The widespread availability and use of search engines such as Google have given rise to a new type of scholar – the digital scholar, whose primary information sources are found online. The principal question addressed by this book is whether there is evidence that various developments in ICTs, especially in the internet and its associated information repositories and search and communication tools, have driven fundamental changes in the way the Google Generation, Generation Y and Generation X search for information.

The key theme of this book is then to determine whether a new generation of information seekers has emerged within formal learning contexts and, if so, what implications might this have for those involved in the provision of learning and support. Original research plus a comprehensive analysis of international sources are applied to determine whether this younger generation of learners is in fact adopting different styles of information search behaviour from older generations as a function of their patterns of use of online technologies. The authors discuss the complexity of digital divides and propose that age‐related differences in use of new information and communications technologies are more sophisticated than previously realised.

Findings in the literature review discuss, inter alia, applications adopted as part of Web 2.0. However, little new knowledge is provided. Chapter 7, the concluding chapter and a summary of the findings of the literature review, does not supply leading edge information and answers to the plethora of questions in chapter one and the rest of the book. It actually starts with another question: What next? – including more questions. The solutions to the final question on the last page of the book: What kind of roles will exist for libraries in this rapidly changing world? – did not make much of an impression either.

This publication could be of interest to less digitally inclined scholars, teachers and students working in higher education in fields such as communications studies, information studies, library studies, media studies and publishing.