26 Deadly sins G is for Googling

That’s the first whole week over of this year’s challenge.

Why stick with seven deadly sins when there are so many things we could get up to?  Life is just too busy to stick with such a small number.  There is so much right with the world these days yet there is so much that is just plain wrong.  Life is filled with modern sins and sinners.  Over the coming month as part of the A-Z blogging challenge, I am going to bring the list up to date with my suggested 26 modern deadly sins.

G is for Googling.  Other search engines are available yet Google has become the de facto choice.  To Google is the way that you find information on the internet.  Have you Googled it?

So why bother learning anything?  Why bother going to school when everything you ever need to know is there at the end of your fingertips?  You don’t even need to type it now.  Just ask Alexa or Cortana.  We can all go the University of Google.  It has replaced the University of Life.

There is more information out there than anyone can hold in their mind.  But information is not knowledge, it is just data and syntax.  To become knowledgeable you need to be able to interpret and discriminate between what makes sense and doesn’t.  You need to have a smattering of understanding to make sense of the information that is presented to you otherwise you will believe anything you are told.

If you Google ‘a smattering of understanding’ it comes back with about one point nine million results.  If it took me a minute to read each one then it would take me seven hundred and ninety two working weeks to get to the end.  Nobody ever does that.  We all give up after the first couple.

Search engines are a boon.  They drive the internet yet they make us lazy.  Googling will not replace the need for learning.

Thou shalt not rely on Google alone.