Do we use Google too little?

cleanbluesky

cleanbluesky

cleanbluesky

Soldato
Joined
2 Nov 2004
Posts
24,654
I wonder if i am getting lazy. Someone asked me a hypothetical question at work...

I said... "If i wanted to find out about that, the first thing I would do is ask you... in case you knew and that way I wouldn't have to do the legwork to find out myself... The next thing I would do is to go on this forum and ask others, in hope that I wouldn't have to do the legwork myself... And then finally, if I had drawn a blank, I would look it up myself..."

How many of us are guilty of this?
 
KASM said:
Surely its more of an effort to ask on the forums than just using Google?
Click to expand...

Yes it is, but it doesn't stop a lot of people here doing just that! Often, entering their thread title into google produces the exact answer they're looking for :/
 
dirtydog said:
Yes it is, but it doesn't stop a lot of people here doing just that! Often, entering their thread title into google produces the exact answer they're looking for :/
Click to expand...

Maybe, for simple questions... but it takes perhaps 15 seconds to post something that could take minutes to research...
 
I'd always use Google before posting here, I think it's irrelevant if it takes longer to research something on Google than it would to post a question as it's still going to take time for people to type up replies.

And it's lazy too!
 
cleanbluesky said:
Maybe, for simple questions... but it takes perhaps 15 seconds to post something that could take minutes to research...
Click to expand...

A lot of the time, what the OP really wants is for someone else to do the legwork on google for him. Surely you should only post a thread on here to ask a question, after you've spent a few minutes googling it yourself without success.
 
Guilty. :)
I use a combination of google these Forums and phone calls to friends.
Being an uneducated out of touch old dude i like to get a broad spread of opinion then make my own mind up at the end.
It never surprises me just how wrong i am about things or just how far off i can be. :p




:D Perfect example is me not reading the thread title properly.
Sry CBS Not guilty. I use google loads its top.
 
It should go Red, Green and then Yellow IMO. It's fine to ask in RL, topic for discussion maybe? OcUK are always my life line.
 
In my opinion, there's a qualitative difference between Google and asking on a forum you use regularly. That difference is the ease of assessing the quality (and therefore reliability) of the answer.

If you use Google, you'll end up with a very mixed range of results. Some may be authoritative, some may just look it, and some will probably be utter drivel. So you then have to hunt around, pick sites that you feel you can trust and, if the answer actually matters, verify it by finding independent confirmation.

But if you ask on a forum you use frequently, you may very well already have a feeling for the skill and expertise (or lack thereof ;) :)) of the people that reply. We have quite a good range of people whose background and expertise in various subjects, especially technical fields, I have confidence in. So, if I ask a specific question and I get a detailed answer from one of those individuals, I'm fairly confident I got useful information rather than the biased, or simply naive, line of bullpoop you'll get from many websites.

cleanbluesky said:
Do we use Google too little?
Click to expand...
I don't know about everybody else, but personally, I don't think so, cbs. I use it as a resource, but no more than that. It's a tool in the toolbox, not the Oracle of Delphi.
 
Personally, google is homepage, and firefox opens a new tab in safari or firefox (depending on browser i'm using) and simplest way to access it :)
 
Loads of people do this. Can't understand it myself as Google is soooo much quicker! Perhaps I'm just impatient!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom