The Google Syndrome

There are many ways to get answers to questions. The traditional methods are asking parents, asking friends and asking teachers in that order. Reading a book to find the answers comes last in the list for the sole reason that human beings are lazy sloths and too much effort is required. Traditional research involved going to the library, searching through an index for "Robin Hood", then searching for the title through half an acre of books only to find that it's a 1582 page behemoth on "The Intricacies of the Plumage of a Robin's Hood", a subject that you never knew existed or would ever care about even if Robins took over the planet and killed all humans who didn't know their blessed hoods and ridiculous significances. Thus you would curse your way back to the catalog and hope that Sherwood isn't the name of the ear bones of Hamsters.

The effort involved is overwhelming and hours are spent in fruitless efforts to finding simple answers. But all that has changed with Google. The internet is useless without Google. It's like a library with no catalog. The difference between a library catalog and Google is that Google give instant access to answers without the hassle of wasting hours at the library. The system is so efficient that it beats parents, friends and teachers to take first place in the list. No more is there any need to ask anyone about anything. Just "Google it". Google can retrieve answers from simple queries such as "What is the temperature of the Sun" to an intricate detail such as "What bolt do I use to clamp a 12mm diameter aluminium plate to the web of 470x180x8.8x11 I beam". And this is precisely what the Google syndrome is all about.

The syndrome will enable you to learn all the knowledge that you can absorb in as much time as you spend in front of the "new idiot box". Although different from the old idiot box in that it involves more interaction with the machine, the fact that human contact breaks down to zero is reason enough for the classification "new idiot box". People may argue that you can join communities, networks and forums; and that you can make friends and be a human there as anywhere outside the computer. But face it. These "communities", "networks", "forums" and "friends" are just individual people in front of their screens at home basements wearing god knows what and just sitting there.

If you still can't realize it, just picture the person you are "interacting" with. He's just sitting there; in front of his computer - Squat! The point here is that even though it is possible to get ALL the answers through Google, it would just make a difference if we asked a teacher or a friend for the answers every now and then and revive some of the human interaction that is slowly being depleted by the Google syndrome. Therefore in order to contribute to the revival of human contact, the next time you need to know the "origin of life and how the universe came to be", just ask your teacher first; and if SHE doesn't know the answer, THEN try Google.