Google and the Death of Knowledge

Google Search figured largely in my use of the internet right from the beginning. As an MS-DOS command-line user I was used to entering terse phrases such as "English county summits" or "longest suspension bridges" or even "full-contact origami" to retrieve that legendary college application that I had come across in pre-internet days.

Why are there black bits in my ice-cream?

However it took a number of years before I appreciated the true power of Google Search. One day, on an idle whim, I typed "Why are there black bits in my ice-cream?" and was amazed to receive a list of articles all answering that very question. (I was also impressed to learn that my four-for-a-pound Magnum lookalikes used real vanilla flavouring - a childhood of choc-ices, raspberry mivvis and arctic rolls had been noticeably free of crushed vanilla-pods). (I was less impressed by Google's lack of a sense of humour as none of the top ten answers to "Why do birds fly south in winter?" indicates they do so because its too far to walk).

Ho do I remove flies from my spectacles?

I still prefer the 'power' use of Google Search by supplying keywords, but sometimes a question is the only way. I walk many miles each week, and flies, and worst of all thrips, settling on my glasses are a nuisance at certain times of year. "How do I remove flies from my spectacles?" sadly only tells me how to clean my glasses, or remove flies from my home. If I use a handkerchief, I risk squidging the offending critter on the lens. Not liking to pause my stride, if I remove my glasses, I risk poking my eye out with the glasses arm, or breaking my leg in an unnoticed rabbithole. The solution, of course (of course my foot!, it took me years to think of it) is to cup your hand over your mouth with your fingers pointing towards the insect and blow the insect off. Takes practice, but avoids the aforementioned risks to life and limb. You may need to close one eye to work out which lens the beastie is on. If it doesn't budge, either you need more practice, or it is on the inside of the lens. These are tricky, but if your hand seals off the lower rim of the glasses and you blow sideways you may be successful. Simples.

In the past people learnt most things of importance on their mother's knee (or perhaps a little later). I'm not sure whether the above two queries fall into this category, and indeed Google should be thanked for providing answers for at least some of those minor things we never got round to asking.

The real problem with Google is that parents no longer feel an obligation to teach their children things, after all they can just Google it. But what if you don't know there is a question that needs asking in the first place? I tried Google with "What do I not know that I need to know?", but the syntax seemed beyond it, and the answers mainly metaphysical. In the days when knowledge was passed from parent (or grandparent) to child, our elders made sure that we knew the things we needed to know. Now it's left to Google, and Google doesn't know. Nor do the more advanced forms of Google Assistant or Siri or whatever, however much they pretend they do.

How do I stop my shoelaces coming undone?

Now I had known ever since I was ever so much smaller than I am now that you should double-knot your shoelaces to stop them coming undone, and typing "How do I stop my shoelaces coming undone?" reveals there is some impressive research emphasising the need to tie the bow as a reef knot rather than a granny. However, excellent as either of these methods are for ribbon-style laces, they don't work effectively with cord-style (i.e. circular cross-section) bootlaces as they are too rigid to form a tight knot. Flapping trouser legs, or if these are tucked in, hostile passing vegetation, can soon work the knot loose. And so my bootlaces kept needing retying (I never got round to fitting ribbon style laces instead). It never occurred to me (or Google) that there was a solution to make the question worth asking again. Simply pass the free ends of the loops under the cross-lacing to stop them jiggling and allowing the knot to work free. Not rocket science. But it took me about twenty years to work this out.

How do you walk across a slope?

"How do you walk across a slope?" is another question I never thought to ask. If you do think to ask Google, it isn't helpful here either (at least not until its search robot has crawled this page), giving instead methods of walking downhill safely, which wasn't my question. You are walking a cambered path around a hillside, and your feet keep sliding down off the downhill edge of the path. The solution is again simple: point your feet slightly uphill and walk in that direction, thereby automatically compensating for the tendency to drift downhill. The tricky bit is looking along the path at an angle to the direction your feet are walking. Must have been one of Basil Fawlty's silly walks, after all he perfected "I'm looking at you but talking to her" in the Hotel Inspector episode. I digress. Once again, not rocket science, but again it took me about twenty years to figure out.

You could answer that I need to walk as part of a group, and someone would have told me, or unwittingly demonstrated, these solutions. Perhaps. Of course, my title is a misleading juxtaposition. Google Search is a great portal for knowledge. I merely wish to point out that Google is not the complete solution. Many many things are discovered and forgotten for lack of a means of sure transmission. Many are trivial, but some are important, like how to make concrete and all those things the Chinese invented and were then reinvented in the West, but it always takes a very long time to (re)discover how to do something, particularly if you don't realise there is a solution in the first place.

And if you reached this page because you needed the answer to one of my Google queries, please let me know, it would be nice to know that my slowly-discovered knowledge has at least passed to one more person...