Day 42: Knowledge Makes Us Stupid

First off, knowledge is a wonderful thing. That is sort of the point of my post. And I, for one, am glad that knowledge is so easy to find today. My generation seems to be pretty much the last to have used things like Encyclopedias to find information. I remember using an Encyclopedia to research countries for schoolwork. And it wasn't that great... by the time I was reading it, some of the info was already out of date, and I couldn't look for more information. For example, if I was researching Mongolia, I would have to go to the library to try to find a book on the horse culture of Mongolia. The encyclopedia would probably mention it, but only have a sentence or two. And usually if I was interested in something, by the time I got to the library, I'd moved on to something else. Not that I wasn't still interested, but you can only get so many library books for research.
Now we have Google. I say Google because I despise Bing. Just my opinion. I do know people who use Bing and love it, but I'm not a fan. Though, as long as you use something, you're doing ok. When I'm curious about something, I Google it. It isn't that I am addicted to technology, it is that I want to know. My Grandparents were talking about a poem one day. They remembered it was a poem about a man named Gunga Din, but didn't really remember much beyond that. I grabbed Grama's computer, and within 5 minutes, pulled up the Rudyard Kipling poem, titled Gunga Din. Which was, of course, the poem they were talking about.
Any time there is some conspiracy/weird story going around (for example, the story a short time ago about Aldi selling horse meat), I go to snopes.com. And I find out immediately (most of the time, on occasion, Snopes doesn't have a definite answer) whether the story is true or not. The one with the horse meat was something that happened a while back, in Germany. And they dealt with the problem. So people in the States were freaking out and talking about boycotting Aldi were simply going nuts for no reason.
Sometimes it seems like people forget that they're on a computer when they're on social media. There are so many people asking questions on twitter/facebook/yahoo answers that they could easily find answers for on their own, just by typing in google.com. And, as an added bonus, the more often you go to Google, the more you'll see the Google doodles, which are both neat and educational.
When you're curious, use Google. Don't just sit there wondering. We have a greater ability to learn quickly than anyone before us. And we just waste it.
Here's a challenge. When you have a question, or something you'd like to learn to do, write it down. Even if it's something goofy like, "I wonder how to make a dragon..." Then, when you're on the computer, cut your social media time in half. If you're gonna spend an hour on facebook, twitter, and pinterest, just spend half an hour on there. Spend the rest of the hour Googling those things you want to learn. Another option would be to spend half of that hour doing some of the projects you've pinned on pinterest (and no, the time it takes you to figure out the right pin to choose does not count as part of that half hour). See how much you improve your knowledge of the world, or your ability to do interesting things such as baking or making dragons. Research places to go on a vacation. Then go, Use the internet to improve your life instead of just wasting time on it.
Let me know how it works out. And if you make that dragon :~) I may give that one a go.