Ice Cream, Instant Oatmeal and Bogging Down in Convenience

Sometimes I tell my students that it's really much, much faster to do research with a book. Or, at least, an academic database. Anything other than the internet. They, of course, don't believe me. I am still getting used to the fact that they are rebelling against The System, and that I am regarded as part of the system. Talk about a mind-fuck! But I digress.

It's hard to convince people of the difference between convenience and accessibility and real world practicality. The internet, for instance, will give you thousands and thousands of informational websites about a mundane term like “dyspepsia.” (Over 1,500,000 hits on Google!..shades of McDonalds.) All that information! And you access it anywhere...from your room, from your web equipped cellphone, in a coffee shop, in the toilet, while you eat...anywhere.

But, first, you've got millions and millions of potentially useful places to look at. This is not a help. I liken it to going to get an ice cream cone on a hit summer day. You go to one place, and they've got four choices...chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate chip. You buy your ice cream and go out and enjoy it. You go to another place, and they've 7,292 possible ice cream choices. Is this really beneficial? It's hot. You want ice cream. Spending fifteen minutes reading a list of choices—and most of the time, people pick vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or chocolate chip anyway—is a waste of time on every level.

In the same vein, people love the fact that they can do research on the internet “anywhere.” But is this a plus? I mean, I personally don't like to be distracted when I'm using a computer. Since most public use computers aren't put in the middle of crowded thoroughfares, my assumption is that this is a shared feeling. And since scholastic and/or work research is last thing we really want to use a computer for, any sort of distraction when we're doing this type of activity is going to be...distracting. Using the internet in a dorm room, or a shared room, or among friends is like having a lecture on economics in the middle of the French Quarter. Nobody cares. Even the lecturer. And the end result is crappy.

But you just can't convince some people of this. No...it's easier! It's more convenient! When it's explained that the convenience, in this case, usually means more time to get less result, the response is disbelief. But what can you expect? We live in a world that promotes “instant” oatmeal..just pour boiling water over instant oatmeal and stir it for thirty seconds. And it;s done! Thank god we've rescued ourselves from boiling water and stirring regular old “slow” oatmeal into it for a full stinking minute. Sure, instant oatmeal costs ten times as much and isn't as good for you. But it takes, like 30 seconds less. It's instant! It's enough to drive me to drink. Or ice cream.