The age of the reference book is dead. And it’s hardly surprising.
When we need to know something, there’s one place we always look first: Google. It can filter results from millions of websites and suggest answers in less than a second. Amazing!
No more desperate struggling with index references in book after book to try to find the information we need. Computerised data is easier to search and constantly updated. And with predictive text, we don’t even need to learn to spell the words correctly, as the computer can guess what we meant to write.
But let’s not forget an important piece of computer terminology: GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. If the information that’s been put into the computer is rubbish, it cannot come up with the right answers.
Just because something is written on a website doesn’t mean it’s true. As Charles Dickens once said, “Never believe everything on the internet.”
Not every person out there is more well-informed than we are, and many of them are intentionally misinforming us to provoke responses (I read today that Prince William has 8 toes on one foot!), to entertain or to deceive.
We’re still far too trusting when it comes to the internet. No wonder so many of us fall for internet scams. How could a member of the Nigerian royal family have got hold of our email address? Is it likely that we’ve won a million dollars in a competition we never entered?
Let’s stop relying on the computer for the answer to every problem and think for ourselves!