As many folks do, I belong to several facebook groups that specialize in certain hobbies/themes.
In each of these groups, there is a regular occurrence that baffles me; Someone will create a post, asking a question that has a very easy to google answer. Like, VERY easy. Yet they seem to have a complete inability to search for this information, and will post a long, convoluted question in an online forum, and rely on someone else to hand the information to them on a silver platter. (as a bonus, often the receive incorrect information from someone who is very similar to them, and simply posts what they THINK the answer is, without doing a simple search.)
examples:
In a site dedicated to Estes model rockets:
“Can anyone tell me how I can get a new 2022 Estes catalog mailed to me? I have wanted to get one for some time, and have no idea how I can get one. (post goes on at length about why they want one).”
Google: “Estes Catalog 2022”
First result: Estes webpage with a form you fill out to get a free catalog mailed directly to you.
Example 2:
Are there any model rocket clubs in Seattle Washington? One would think that there would be, but I can’t find any. Too bad."
Google: “Model rocket club Seattle”
First result " Washington Aerospace Club is a rocketry club meets the first Wednesday of each month at the Museum of Flight in Seattle and newcomers are always welcome."
On a related note, what’s up with people who answer a question with completely wrong information, AFTER the correct answer has clearly and obviously been given?
Eg.
“Does anyone know what this plant is? It is growing in one of my pots in a damp shady area”
< posts clear picture>
Me: “Ah, very cool. That’s a liverwort, probably the Common Liverwort <posts picture from iNaturalist, that looks identical> They are related to mosses, and like to grow in cool, damp places. They have a very interesting life-cycle, and have spores rather than seeds.
Dude 1: “ Maybe it’s a buttercup? My mom had buttercups growing in a pot once.”
Dude 2: “It’s toxic to cats. Better kill it and sterilize all the soil.”
Me: “Actually it’s a liverwort, and is not toxic to anything
Dude 3: “Definitely a slime mould. This means your house foundations are in danger”
Dude 4: “Don’t eat it”
Dude 1: “My mom’s buttercups are really nice”
Me: “It’s a liverwort”
Dude 5: “I wonder what it is? It looks weird.”
Me: IT. IS. A. LIVERWORT. HERE. IS. A. PAGE. OF. INFORMATION. ABOUT. THEM.
Dude 6: “huh, I guess we’ll never know what it is.”
[Re the OP] It happens among my IRL friends all the time. Someone will ask me something simple, like one of the examples in the OP, and I’ll suggest they Google it, and OFTEN they’ll reply, “I never thought of that!” It’s a complete mystery to me. I don’t know what they think Google is for.
I was wondering about a term someone told me applied to a dating situation (where women, mostly, were using first-dates as a way to get a free meal) but there was no easy way to Google it. So I asked and someone familiar with the term told me it was “Dating for Dinner” or D4D–I still don’t know which Google terms I could have used to get that info that fast (about 5 minutes).
Interestingly, I just googled “women using first-dates as a way to get a free meal”
and the first hit was an Atlantic article that gives it a couple of names:
The study, authored by the psychological researchers Brian Collisson, Jennifer Howell, and Trista Harig, employs the unfortunate coinage “foodie call” to refer to this practice, which has also (again unfortunately) been called “sneating” (a mash-up of the words sneaky and eating ).
I can only assume they all have you on ignore? The transcript makes perfect sense if I don’t read your replies.
Unjokingly, I think what happens lots of times is people see the question in the OP, want to post something, so they just scroll down to the end and put in their reply. Maybe they read the last comment or two, which are "huh. I guess we’ll never know what it is” assume the question wasn’t answered yet, and post their own nonsense.
Also, people don’t even bother to read the whole OP.
OP: I need a way to keep food cold, but it can’t be a refrigerator, because those are too big to take to the beach, and my extension cord isn’t long enough.
Every third response: How about a refrigerator?
I don’t know what the deal is of not googling things. I mean, even for my stupid example, searching for “portable cold thing” gets me to coolers on the first page.
A few months ago I responded to someone here with the “Let me Google That For You” link. The person I was responding to was incensed and blocked me. The mods here were not thrilled…it was enough for them to tell me not to do that again (I hope it is ok here as an example).
I think people are lazy and want others to do the work.
I visit Reddit pretty frequently and these sorts of questions appear a lot, oftentimes paired with a response boiling down to “why couldn’t you have just Googled that?”
A few times the people posing the question replied that they preferred to “converse” with people on Reddit (insofar as you can, anyway) than Google it elsewhere. Maybe there’s an element to that in some of these Facebook groups. I might trust the guidance of a person in a model rocket group than I would my own research.
Maybe it is easier than I think. The friend I was writing about in that thread ended up sending me that link, but the Doper who responded sent me a different one.
I guess i was thinking Googling “women using first-dates as a way to get a free meal” would get me a lot of irrelevant hits. Maybe people reluctant to Google things are thinking, like me, that they need to be more precise in search terms than they really need to.
People on phones my not see previous replies. Or as echoreply says above, they just scroll down. (see? I read that post!)
I enjoy searching for information; others see this as a terrible chore, and just would rather someone do this for them. (Along the lines of what Tabco says)
I do have a lot of experience researching information, dating back to the old days when you had to dig through a card catalog, or paper copies of Science Citation Index, or construct searches through a database using “AND” “OR” “+” “-” and other terminology, and then wait a day and hope you got some decent articles returned. So maybe my google-fu is above average.
When I first started here I would see that a lot, usually using the acronym LMGTFY. Then at some point it was decided it was too snarky or something, and therefore jerkish behavior. I don’t remember any formal announcement about it (although there may have been), but after a couple of testy moderator responses it seemed to mostly go away. I think I have still seen “Google is your friend” responses from time to time though.
I have mixed feelings, but clearly it’s easy to mis-use so I can certainly live without it.
On occasion I see someone ask a non-obvious question in a FB interest group and get slammed for not having Googled the correct answer - as though the responding poster was personally offended by the questioner not having had the skill to root out the answer by searching.
If I know the answer it doesn’t bother me to supply it, even if the person asking the question is “lazy”.
