Sync or swim: Internet searches
Kevin P. Lavery · Screen education · 2017
The internet is enormous, which is both good and bad. It's great that we have this massive repository of information, but without a proper index it's difficult to traverse and, from everything we've learnt from the new wave of cybercrime police procedurals, it's very easy to slip into 'the deep web' (and Lil' Bow Wow may or may not be able to save you). While there isn't an index (per se), there are search engines; 'engine' is plural because there is more to searching the internet than 'googling'. Google's status as a verb solidifies its place as the king of search engines and it isn't going anywhere - it doesn't matter how many script editors Microsoft pays to insert the line 'Bing it' into television vernacular, it's not going to catch.1 A search engine alone isn't a golden compass; like a real compass (golden or not), you still need to know how it helps you find your way, how to best utilise it, and what to use it to look for. If Google is your compass, at the moment a lot of people have an enormous Wile E Coyote-style magnet in their back pocket, limiting a good deal of its usefulness.