A tale of self proclaimed internet expert,
a frog and a 7-year-old girl
This morning while inspecting my yard I found a cute 2-inch long frog. After snapping a quick picture I called Mia, my 7-year-old, out to take a look at it, while I quickly sat down at the computer to find out what kind of frog it was.
I have been on the internet forever, I regularly talk crap about how spammy the internet has become, and reminisce about the good old days when the web was full of non-commercial content and websites which were created simply for the joy of sharing your knowledge with the world.
I Googled “Florida Frogs” and clicked on a credible link from the University of Florida which categorized the Frogs and Toads commonly found in this area.
I skimmed down the list trying to find a frog that matched the one that was sitting outside, but after about 90 seconds and clicking on a couple other search results, I gave up my search and headed back outside.
Mia was not satisfied when I told her I couldn’t find out what kind of frog it was so she went inside to take a shot. Within 20 seconds she hollered out: “Dad, it’s a Cuban Tree frog“, and when I came in I found her looking at the exact frog that was sitting in her grass.
What had she searched for? She had searched for “White Frog” and clicked on Images.
The lesson I learned from this, is that it’s not the internet that has grown stale, but has evolved into something more organic than just an online encyclopedia, and my failure to recognize this adds an unnecessary layer of complexity making it more difficult to find what I’m looking for.
Sometimes life’s problems are just as easy as searching for “white frog”.
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