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Aug. 29th, 2025 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evening_tsarI seem to remember graduating from high school energized, galvanized, and ready to take on a world that ceased to exist the minute I stepped out into it.
I was a master of micro-fiche, card-catalogues, and the Encyclopedia Britannica (to say nothing of cassette tapes, and Word Perfect).
I enjoyed those investigative methods. I felt invigorated by the effort it took, and gratified by the results they yielded - the same way anything feels when your efforts pay off.
Needless to say, all these efforts went down the garburator with the advent of a certain technical innovation.
Today's "clicketyclicketyclick" research provides me no gratification, and certainly not better results. It feels a little like the way my Mother warned me I would feel after flicking channels all night with a bag of cheesies. Funny how the world spent so much time telling us not to stare at a screen too much while growing up, and now practically demands it.
But I forget: the generation that liked to stare at screens now runs the world.
It is a cliche to say the Google search engine has gotten worse. It has. It does not yield me the information I need but the crap it thinks I want, and, more importantly, the crap big tech wants me to want.
Alternative options are limited though, as so little information is provided any other way.
Don't get me started on GPS.
I was a master of micro-fiche, card-catalogues, and the Encyclopedia Britannica (to say nothing of cassette tapes, and Word Perfect).
I enjoyed those investigative methods. I felt invigorated by the effort it took, and gratified by the results they yielded - the same way anything feels when your efforts pay off.
Needless to say, all these efforts went down the garburator with the advent of a certain technical innovation.
Today's "clicketyclicketyclick" research provides me no gratification, and certainly not better results. It feels a little like the way my Mother warned me I would feel after flicking channels all night with a bag of cheesies. Funny how the world spent so much time telling us not to stare at a screen too much while growing up, and now practically demands it.
But I forget: the generation that liked to stare at screens now runs the world.
It is a cliche to say the Google search engine has gotten worse. It has. It does not yield me the information I need but the crap it thinks I want, and, more importantly, the crap big tech wants me to want.
Alternative options are limited though, as so little information is provided any other way.
Don't get me started on GPS.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-30 12:05 am (UTC)