I’m starting to dislike the search-enabled, easy-access-to-information lifestyle. I’m putting the blame on Google, but it’s all searchable databases that are doing this to me. Here are three reasons why:

Googling changes opinions.
I wonder if having such ready access to facts changes our opinions. If I think X, but then check and everyone else is saying X-prime, maybe I’ll shift my idea to X-prime. Does Googling direct people into the mainstream of accepted thought?

Googling limits creativity.
Writing a blog entry that is factually correct is informative and important but what about creative invention? Don’t new ideas require mistakes and false starts? Perhaps some people feel that those ought to be private, unpublished musings and notes but I don’t think so. Incorrect ideas, suppositions, brainstorming—or even a question—invite people to participate. If you look up the answer online, you lose that chance to spark a new idea.

Googling is time consuming.
Googling and fact checking eat up a disproportionate amount of my day. It’s not the searching itself that takes so long, it’s the incessant need to know. Some of it is justifiable research for projects, but much of it is not. as an example, I spent ten minutes double checking an idea that I have no intention of ever implementing. Followed by a quick check of the name of that movie with that guy in it that I was trying to remember yesterday. And then a search to find out if I can buy a pair of gloves at Haneda Airport. Surely I have better things to do with my time…