Just a few days ago, I was interacting with some six-seven-year-old kids. I asked them, “Can one of you tell me how to convert this dirty water in this glass in my hand into nice clear water that I can drink?” I thought I would get dozens of answers. The first child I selected said, “Aap google kar lijiye (Just google it!)” and they all started laughing.
I was surprised. In my early years as a teacher, several hands would have gone up, and there would have been many answers. Now Google has become the new Guru for the young generation and rather than applying their mind, Google is their first step of inquiry.
Frankly speaking, we scientists were outperformed simply due to the fact that we had to depend on outdated information, which reached us so late. I remember spending hours browsing hundreds of pages of journals, just to find one answer!
We did the hard work of actually reading, absorbing and writing, while today in Google-age the vast library and repository is in your pocket. In the past two decades especially, the newer generation...
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