“GOOGLE”

by Desmond Kelly, the “Star of eLanka”

Just a few years ago, I had not even heard the word!!

To “go” with the above silly -sounding “google” was the even sillier-sounding word “geek”. We were already well aware of the mammoth “computers” then practically running the lives of most people in first-world Countries like Australia. These computers often filled an entire room of office-space and had a team of computer-operators working on these huge machines day and night in order to keep the world turning.

Then, just as suddenly, the computer-phase was on it’s way “out” as the “Internet” made it’s way “in”. Suddenly, the major telephone Companies were busy laying millions of metres of special underground cables to bring this thing called “Internet” into most homes all around Australia, concentrating, as they do, on the larger Cities first. Everything then, began to get “smaller”. Mobile telephones were roughly the size of a house-brick, not too long ago, now began to “shrink” before our very eyes . Mini-computers began to find their way into the hands of those who could afford them, and thus, the word “google” was born.

I am the first to admit that I wanted nothing to do with this new-fangled “toy”. All around me were the new breed of “computer-geeks” I have a strange feeling that the word “fanatics” was a bit more difficult for the “geeks” to spell, and so, there they were, the new mini-telephones, the mini-computers, and mini- “geeks” that operated them.

I do think that “google” started in America. The word was then “embraced” in Australia. There was, & is, NOTHING you cannot find out about, if you GOOGLE it.
Hands, (young ones, especially), with young fingers that, unfortunately, around the year 2050 will have what is termed “repetitive-strain-syndrome”which will not then have the capacity to “move like lightning”and “call” or “text” their comrades, 24/7 (day & night). This is, of course, only the “mobile-phone” part of it. Then, there is the Internet, itself.

The “Geek” will then tell his/her friend ” If you have a problem with anything at all, just google it”. The problem here is that this friend must know how to write the google correctly or get even more confused than they already are. The “Google-People” have a way of confusing people who cannot write properly, and finally, after the information is produced, the next problem shows it’s ugly face. The Geek-who-googled will have to know HOW TO READ!.

My advice to all these young people concerned, is to “google” a “Reader”, in the first instance. I still remember my first reader in school at Moratuwa. I have never ever had “an inferiority complex” and this stops me from bragging unnecessarily, but I was reading fluently at around 6 years of age. The Internet is here, the mobile phones & iphones are here, the driver-less cars are almost here but, in my own opinion, as always, and especially as far as the younger folk are concerned, BOOKS WILL BE BY FAR, THE BEST EDUCATION YOU WILL GET. GOOGLE IT!!.

Desmond Kelly.
“Star of eLanka”