University of Google

I used “Google” in the title of this article because everyone knows what Google is. But I would not necessarily use that search engine to look for information to educate myself—depending, of course, on what I was looking for. Maybe if I wanted to be more educated on the mating habits of fruit flies I would trust Google to send me unbiased information. But most everything else, forget it. Also, this article is not about search engines per se, but about the internet as a source of information.

I am getting ahead of myself already. Let me back up a bit.

The internet is undeniably a treasure trove of information. As you hear all of the time, we are in an “information age” where the most valuable commodity of the time is data—information. I am unsure if I believe this (I think the truly valuable commodity at any time is love, compassion, and empathy, but that’s another topic). Anyway, for whatever reason, it seems information is what everyone is so desperate to get a hold of. And apparently the internet is where you will find it. That isn’t wholly true either, in my very humble opinion, but I do believe it is a valuable source equivalent (and in some ways better than) most conventional sources such as libraries, and most notably, institutions of higher learning.