Posted by: Chester

My name is Chester and I am a googleholic. It has been 45 minutes since my last Google.

It all began innocently enough some years ago with simple searches about things I had a curiousity about - Early aviation experiments, shoreline erosion and mummification were all subjects that google willingly shared information on. I would stand by the water cooler for hours chatting with co-workers about all manner of interesting tidbits I found with Google. Folks would come and go, but I always had something new to talk about; always that sweet nugget of information that nobody else knew of. I spent many harmless hours expanding my information base. I say information base because it is not knowledge I have gathered from Google, but merely info. Happy, harmless fun searching for answers to my curiousity about things.

Then I began to notice the speed at which my clock ticked by while Googling. A few minutes spent looking up 17th century surveying techniques turned into hours looking for the definitive website about puppeteering. My wife was the first to notice though and she and the children quietly vanished one night right after my new business cards arrived and she read of my new profession as a Googlist embossed in red, blue and yellow below my name. Before long minutes, hours and days seemed to meld together into one long, uninterrupted Google search trying to find answers to questions I did not have need of.

Cheap flights to Pyongpang? Chester knew where to find them!
A local electrician that works for barter? Just emailed him yesterday!
Wiring schematics for a ‘68 Duster? Downloading now!

Christ, I didn’t even own a Duster!!! That’s when it hit me - I can’t stop. Even now while writing this I have looked up the Latin root word of barter and checked on the weather in Shanghai.

Why? Why? Why Lord do I Google. I’ve lost my job, my family, my home and the only reason I picked this particular rooming house is because there is an unsecured wireless network in the neighbourhood that I can piggyback on in order that I don’t actually go to the library and pick up a book.

I know more, but I have less.

Where did it all go wrong, I wonder while googling hotplate recipes. It may seem like my best friend, but Google has me under it’s spell - a mindtrap that holds me fixated like code positions a toolbar.

For me it is too late. I cannot escape. But I write this in hopes that our children and our childrens’ children, don’t search themselves straight into a New World Order.

My name is Chester and I am a googleholic.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Google the Ugly.