I’ve always been a “lurker” on all platforms and communities because when I do have a question or would like to contribute my first thought has become:
Actually, let me google it first
In which case I’ll usually have some answer. Usually it isn’t a complete answer but enough for me to not want to share my question anymore.
Googling something is probably the most efficient way to find an answer, in the same way that flavorless nutrient shakes are probably the most efficient way to fuel your body. Asking questions and conversing about the answers is fun. It’s madness to abandon an entire genre of human conversation just because some search engine exists.
If every time a person has a question, it has to be re-answered, it’s vastly less efficient than having it be answered once and then have people just Google for it. When I answer a question, I want it to benefit not just one random person but all the future people who can find it via searching.
I understand the people who object to people being rude about it, but not with the people saying that they should not be expected to at least search – a small expenditure of their time – before asking other people to spend their time fixing the first person’s problem.
It takes you seconds to hit Google. If you broadcast that question to a forum, maybe thousands or tens of thousands or even millions of people read your question. Then they donate their time to try to solve your issue, and multiple people may spend time on it. It almost certainly takes more time per individual to craft a good answer than it takes the asker to perform a search. That is asking for a big chunk of time from people who are trying to donate their time to help others. Their time is much more limited than Google search cycles.
Common courtesy is to search first. If that doesn’t solve it, then ask.
You’re making the assumption that everyone is capable of using Google to the extent needed to find an answer. Being able to fully utilize and understand exactly what it is you’re searching for is a skill in and of itself and not everyone knows how or what to search for. Of course this is dependent on the question/issue but I still think that too many people take for granted that Google-Fu is an actual skill that some can lack
If plugging the text of the question that you’re asking into the Google Search bar turns up pages with the answer, then that isn’t the situation. And that’s generally what I think people get upset about.
It depends. I get your point but there are a lot of questions to which answers change over time and a restatement of the question can lead to a discussion about new and better ways to answer them. Plus if I’m new to something I often simply ask the wrong question. Something a knowledgable human recognizes, but google does not. So a better answer to basic questions often is ‘google this not that’ making it way easier for the new person to find the answers.
I’ve been in situations where someone on the table asks a question nobody knows the answer to and the conversation just dies then and there. For example, someone might say: “…and then I saw wallaby from my hotel window, so I started wondering if they would eat those nice flowers I saw the day before”. Well, nobody on the table knows what wallabies eat, so nobody said anything and the conversation just died.
Instead of anyone saying “let me google that”, there’s a long silence and then someone just takes the conversation in a completely different direction by saying something like: “oh, BTW I’ve been thinking of getting a new car and that’s when…”
There’s also the benefit of discussion. You can find perspective on information which is arguably just as valuable as the information itself. Wisdom isn’t just knowing the facts but understanding them in practice and in proximity to other facts.
>google question >reddit thread with exact question as title >one comment >”just google it”
The trouble with google search these days is…
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have a question that you need answered, but don’t know the answer to? Everyone runs into this issue from time to time, but fortunately there is a simple solution. By using google search to find your answer, you will be both satisfied and educated by the result! People across the world use this simple tool every day to find answers to a wide variety of questions.
Then after 2+ paragraphs of that you’re lucky if there’s an answer at all, not to mention a correct one.
The problem with this mantra for me is that in a discussion, I don’t want to know what website x thinks the definition or answer is, I want to know what you think it is. If the term/issue is uncontroversial then googling is fine, but if it’s vague, confusing or has different interpretations, Google could make things worse.
E.g. someone complains that cultural marxism is bringing down western civilization. I could Google this and find out it’s an antisemitic conspiracy theory espoused by the Nazis and now the American right. But will this definition help me understand the person I’m talking to and what they mean? Will it help the conversation? Absolutely not.
But if I asked, “what do you mean by that” nd the person responded, e.g. “how the left is pushing diversity in society against the will of ordinary people” (or whatever), then we can have an actual conversation about what is bothering this person.
And another problem with it is it prevents talking.
Some anthropologists liken human speech to chimpanzee grooming. To bond, a chimpanzee will sit there and pick through another chimpanzee’s back hair. Time spent doing this builds a bond between them.
Conversation works that way for humans. It’s just an instinctual emotional need: to put energy into activities that create bonds with other people.
I’m autistic, and learning the above was a sort of breakthrough moment for me in terms of respecting small talk, respecting the real value of a conversation even when there’s no practical need for knowledge transfer.
Of course, I’d rather bond by snuggling because it low-key hurts to talk, but our culture really only permits that with animals, lovers, and family.
Incidentally, that connects with another interesting fact about the Dunbar number.
As some may know that’s the number of people who can live in a tribe or community where everyone’s brain still has the capacity to remember (a) how they feel about each other person and (b) how each other person feels about each other person.
It’s about 120 individuals, for humans. Once it gets beyond 120 people, you start encountering “strangers”. People you might have seen, but you don’t know who they’re tight with, what they’re up to.
For chimps it’s 40 individuals. Chimps can’t keep track of more than 40 nodes in an interrelationship graph of relationships.
So 120 and 40. It’s a ratio of three. Some speculate this ratio is because chimps’ bonding behavior permits bonding with one other individual at a time, and humans’ bonding behavior permits bonding with three individuals at a time.
For chimps, that’s grooming. You can groom one other chimp’s back at a time, allowing you to bond with one other chimp.
With humans it’s talking. So why three people? (This is where it gets really interesting, at least for me.) It’s three people because when one person is speaking to three or fewer people, it’s intimate enough to be a bonding experience. And when a person is speaking to four or more people, it doesn’t feel intimate enough to be a bonding experience.
The really fun part is you can see this happening at social gatherings. Because one speaker can engage three listeners while maintaining intimacy, this means conversations can be two to four people. As soon as a fifth person walks up, beer in hand, to join the conversation, it will split into two conversations. You’ll have a 2 and a 3, instead of one big 5.
Or, if the conversation does stay stable at 5 people, it morphs into more of a “presentation” that separates the group into speakers and audience, and that’s not a bonding experience.
At most social gatherings, people want to connect, so instead of that switch to audience mode the conversation will split when it reaches 5, into separate 2- and 3-person conversations.
So the other problem with the google mantra is it removes an excuse to talk from society, and we need excuses to verbalize at each other so we don’t feel alienated. Asking for directions, bumming a cigarette, talking about the weather or sports, saying good morning and how-are-you-im-fine and hello, these are all cultural scaffolds that make excuses to hear each other’s voices.
And asking for basic info is part of that. In conversations, we get more things to say if we normalize asking for and providing basic background info. It helps people get their voices warmed up, to say things that aren’t that deep, to present easily-found knowledge, just warm up the vocal chords with the basic stuff.
Very insightful and not something I’d have thought of. A large part of me feels as though many of the issues of today can be blamed on the fact that nobody actually talks to eachother anymore. Socializing has been replaced with social media, where you see curated snapshots of your “friend’s” lives which only show the good, and get invested in the curated snapshots of the lives of celebrities. You look at your friends and random celebrities doing things instead of doing them yourself or with your friends. And in turn, you post your own curated snapshots to make yourself look good and feel like you’re participating, thus continuing the cycle.
This state of knowing only about the cool and fun things other people are doing while simultaneously never actually speaking to them causes you to feel left out because your life isn’t anywhere near as fun as their lives look, and the fact that people tend to only post good looking pictures of themselves online makes you feel bad about your own appearance, because you don’t look anywhere near as good as they make themselves look.
With how pervasive the atomization caused by the internet is, I should’ve known that even its greatest strength, its ability to deliver information, might have harmful side effects. Indeed, I wonder how many conversations I’ve not had the opportunity to partake in because I found what I wanted out of them on Google. Or books I haven’t read because I got what I wanted out of them on Google. Convenient, for sure, but perhaps it takes a little bit of the joy out of finding new information, whether that joy comes from the other stuff you learn along the way or the human interaction which occurs in the process.
great post
I feel like a similar thing happens because of social media like Instagram. people constantly lose the opportunity to tell others all about the things they do because they already did that in batch. what could easily become dozens of small conversations with different people, where one could add their own flavour to the story and improve it, making it ever more interesting each time it is told, ends up not happening at all. silent scrolling and tapping instead
on top of that, multimedia usually translates real moments badly - for the better or worse: that giant hill becomes tiny and boring or that perfect angle hides the ugly part of the scene and looks beautiful. not to mention the fact that they are taking away part of enjoying real moments for the sake of creating online content
I, myself, don’t do this. but I often travel with people who do and I lost track of the times I meet someone afterwards and start talking about it, only to be stopped with a “oh I saw it all already”. and I really can’t blame anyone, since it’s a very easy trap to fall into and it’s even expected of you in some social circles
Yes! Each person has a unique perspective and it’s enriching to hear people tell their own stories about things, because each person contains an entire world.
antisemitic conspiracy theory espoused by the Nazis and now the American right. But will this definition help me understand the person
Well… If you know where someone is getting their information, it actually does say a lot about a person.
When I run across an argument like that, I know to back out of it and reassess if it’s worth it in the first place.
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Yeah I get that people use it that way but what if you actually want a discussion? Gets a bit tiresome to be accused of “letting them spew hatred” when if you actually want them to stop spewing hatred, a conversation with actual understanding is necessary, imo. Or at least the best way I know of
I lost this belief for myself. Anonymous people usually don’t have enough respect towards each other to actually make a change.
Online discussions are mostly either about “winning” or just getting so annoyed that you don’t want to continue anymore.
Especially the antisemitic conspiracy crowd have integrated their beliefs so deeply into their identity, that lighthearted conversation will not shake them.
I have empathy or atleast understanding for these people, especially when they talk about their life story and upbringing. In the end tho, it doesn’t really matter. Many people are even self-aware to a degree about their mental flaws, but simply are too broken to even seek help.
For many political ideology is simply an escape from reality. Some watch anime, some talk to random people online, some get into weird shit.
Why I started to ask those questions here. And I have gotten back way better responses than I ever gotten from a Google search.
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It’s really really gotten bad in the last few months. Results are usually full of those SEO Blog Spam, or completely random things… or sometimes even nothing at all.
Google has really gone to shit. “2009 Eurovision winner”. 3 pages of the 2033 Eurovision winner.
Same with Google maps. “Pyramids of Giza”, shows pyramids bar in London.
Why are you not placing bets on who the 2033 winner will be with your prescient searching
I suspect Google doesn’t want to to find stuff quickly so you can stay on their site longer, or they show sites that try to sell something as much as possible. I’m using Espanso (text expansion) to filter out a list of words like shop, prices, buy, Amazon, apple, pinterest. But still other search engines often have better results nowadays.
and sometimes it’s not about the answer …
True, but sometimes it’s about harassing and arguing in bad faith, so I totally understand why sometimes the default answer is “google it”
i hate how accurate this is
I feel “just fucking google it” culture is toxic and driver away new users on a lot of discussion boards.
Dumb questions that could be easily answered with a search engine or AI are not my idea of ideal discussion and I don’t see a point to retaining it. “Noob questions” are fine, using a discussion board as a first resource for a basic question is not.
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It really really depends.
“What time does ASDA shut?” - well the answer involves someone in the comment section googling it, I can see the “just Google it” frustration.
But
“Why is the bottom of my 3D print really messy?” - anyone who could claim to be intermediate at 3D printing would know that it is either a support material issue, or maybe they haven’t got “bridging” settings turned on. Replying with “a simple Google would find it was an issue with bridging” but the person asking the question may not even know that phrase to use.
Edit: I like to do the old “this is what i think it is, but here are some terms you could use to better understand in case my solution doesn’t work”
That second scenario you’ve described is why I loathe this “just fucking google it” mantra.
Searching for stuff needs some amount of information to begin with. You need to know what search terms to use, which means you have to know something about the problem you’re trying to solve. And a lot of times, that is precisely the problem: not knowing what even to include in the search query. With a human on the other side of the tube, it’s something that could easily be remedied with a few follow-up questions, but a search engine can’t do that–nor do you want for it to do that.
EDIT: Clarified things.
Changed “And a lot of times, that is precisely the problem: not knowing how to formulate the search query” to “And a lot of times, that is precisely the problem: not knowing what even to include in the search query.”
I agree to an extent. I feel discussions have lost depth online. Since most of the time online users don’t have the same caliber as one may be more used to in the 2010 and prior era of the internet. I feel, on sites like Reddit, i leave discussions feeling more confused and/or exhausted rather than enlightened.
Something I’ve noticed as I’ve shifted more of my conversations from Reddit to Discord (even before the garbage fire over at the site) is that I’m not looking up stuff as much during instant, short-form communication. Just casual conversation really is okay sometimes. I’ll be trying to keep that in mind as I spend more time on Reddit alternatives.
I also have a theory that message board conversations spend as much time on opinion as they do because all the little shit has been solved now that we have esoteric information at our fingertips. Some people don’t even know what it was like to be sitting around with friends all trying to figure out what 80’s film you saw Robert Loggia in because you couldn’t just look it up on-demand.
There are lots of benefits to lurking. Nobody jumps on you with pedantic bull crap. Nobody tells you to just Google it. Nobody picks at every god damn little picky thing you say. Nobody bothers you. It’s a wonder anybody bothers to post or comment at all. Life is more peaceful for lurkers.
Some questions are overasked tho in certain communities. I remember for example on r/AskMiddleEast that people where asking what the people’s thoughts on Ataturk were, multiple times a day, sometimes even multiple time in an hour.
I was on that sub for only a month and people were doing this everyday. Some seemed genuinely curious, some played it up for the meme, but it still never stopped. Apparently this has been going even long before I joined.
In the end I left the sub, because the sub always had the same 5 posts on repeat constantly, even the comments and debates played out everytime exactly the same, to the point where people were just giving copy-pasted responses from previous discussions to each other.
I can understand, why someone would perhaps answer with “just google it” in this case.
Though the more healthy thing for this type of person would be to just log off and stop getting annoyed by reading through the same questions again and again and do something entirely new.
Yeah it’s kind if strange behaviour to be on a discussion board and only contribute by killing the discussions by pointing to Google.
I get that people get annoyed by low effort posts and people’s general inabilty to find information independently. But there are better ways…
Especially since that discussion might be found later via Google as well. It’s more helpful to say that you looked it up via a specific search and give a couple of the results. That way it’s not a dead end and the person hopefully learns how to help themselves in the future by example.
Googling niche topics usually takes me to reddit/quora where someone has already asked the same question and someone has already answered. But sometimes (rarely) it takes to threads where the first comment says “google it” 😑.
Did you mean recursion?
The real irony is that, for a number of questions, the “answer” was either in StackOverflow or one of its similar sites, or in Reddit
Or more infuriating is when I AM searching Google and the results bring me to some asshat saying “Just google it bruh.”
U too?! Bro, i tough it was something wich could happened but just in really weird instances, but it seem like isn’t really strange at all.
I remember pulling my hair the first time it happened, I was absolutely baffled!
Why would you even take the time out of your day to go on a Q&A forum and respond like this to someone asking a question? Do these people not have hobbies? That kind of response is more insulting than just not getting a response.
Yeah, if you’re going to respond you should make the response useful. You can politely tell them to make use of Google and answer the question.
Don’t ask a question, post a wrong answer to the question you have.
That’ll give you many answers.
Of course you can always start by RTFM you lazy sod.
IF your post doesn’t get deletet for being obviously wrong. You need a little bit of knowlege in the field your asking in for this method in my experience.
True, that’s what the manual reading is for.
Not to mention that Google is also terrible for retrieving some (most?) kinds of information. It can work with basic facts but then you’re still relying on Google (or any other search engine) not to omit other salient facts or sources.
I was like you and mainly lurked for this reason, too. The fediverse can be a lot friendlier. The atmosphere had changed a little since the latest Reddit exodus. Hopefully, most of the toxicity of that platform is left behind.
It might be helpful to reiterate that knowledge isn’t fixed and the while Google provides one answer, we could get a better answer after a discussion. So keep asking questions!
Than there’s the element of sites going down. Redundant conversations serve as a form of backup.
