Stop Googling
Seriously. Stop it. Stop googling everything incessantly all the time. Whether you are at a bar with your friends discussing if Daniel Day-Lewis or Meryl Streep has been in more Oscar-nominated films, or at lunch with colleagues arguing how many slices of bread a 9mm pistol can shoot through at once. Or even when you’re at home, with your family, trying to explain how a nuclear power plant works (you sort of get the gist of it, right? Something, something, heavy water).
So often in an argument, the answer is not the point. The discussion is the space where people reveal the way they think. Not just what they believe, but why. It is your chance to learn more of your fellows, and their opinions. You can easily look up the answer to the Meryl Streep/Daniel Day-Lewis question (I’m not going to tell you here), but rabidly listing their filmography with your friends can take you in so many other interesting directions.
Like when you learn your friend has seen Bridges of Madison County more than 50 times. Or when you find out your colleague has an incredible understanding of bullet ballistics, because it turns out, their dad used to be in a secret division of the armed forces. These are all very real scenarios that will happen to you, if you bring these topics up.
But too many of us have become obsessed with being right. It’s about being the first person to find an article that supports your views. And so, it ceases to be about the discussion, or examination, itself. And while answers can be important, we too often become so focused on the goal, that we forget the merits of the journey. Even when there is no clear answer.
Of course now, some will point out the elephant in the room of any fact-checking discussion. The new evil of modern society that has only grown more sinister this last decade: What about misinformation? Too often we hear of the dangers of fake news (or the wrongful naming of fake news) and how it can lead to all kinds of evils, from small things like family discord all the way to entire nations making irrevocable political decisions to the detriment of the majority of the population.
With the power of digital distribution, anyone can share a wrong idea, that can take root and infest a population until it is touted as empirical truth. And it doesn’t confine itself to the digital world. When you hear your friend talk about how processed cheese is ‘actually a natural antibiotic’, should you not correct them, before someone ‘medicates’ themselves to a nice case of gangrene? When your mom tells you, that she read about the virtues of an all-water diet, are you not then obliged to tell her she is putting shame on your shared DNA?
Probably. And most people would. But the onus is not just on the speaker. Anyone spreading falsehoods is partly culpable for the consequences of their words, but the greater blame lies on those who act on false words. Supposing you had the chance to find out the truth of any given matter, the true responsibility is on you to do your due diligence, before you make take any action. If an influencer shares a story about the power of healing crystals, they should be reprimanded, but if you decide to treat your appendicitis with an amethyst the buck really stops there.
So, bring back google-less discussions! Bring back the back-and-forth arguments about nothing in particular, that can steal away an entire night as we simply sit around with friends, family or loved ones. Talking at once about nothing of importance and the most important things of all.